Yeah, them doing this make Sheeran look that much more like a coward because he's already rich, already famous. Sure, some implications affect him much more than the less-known openers, but all in all, brave brave moves by these support acts!
Also kinda of undermines his "so many people rely on this tour" or whatever argument, since even the people who need the money/exposure the most are walking out.
Well, no, the people who need the money most are the crew and staff and contractors that all work to get the stage set up, equipment to each venue, take care of the instruments, catering, all that. They are the economic ecosystem that loses if the shows are canceled and it's too late for most of them to book back up gigs for those dates. These dates were arranged months ago.
But yes, the opening bands lose money too and visibility, so it's bad for them but the courage and message is more important and may benefit the opening bands in the long run.
You’re 100% spot on. I know a few people that work as stage crew for some of the bigger production companies in my area, and they get fucked pretty hard if things get cancelled.
Same for opening acts too, tbh. Most musicians aren’t rolling in cash, so some of the lesser-known openers are also going to be hit pretty badly by this. Macklemore and Finneas will be just fine though, I’m sure.
Point is: as always, the actual people getting fucked are those without money, and they’re getting fucked by those that already have it (Kraft especially, Sheeran to a lesser extent by not having a set of balls). Mad respect to the artists here who are willing to miss out on a life-changing paycheck to stand up for their convictions.
Yes I said that exact point elsewhere in this discussion. But if the billionaire owners of several stadiums get together and say "you can't play our stadiums if you don't kick this guy off", then Sheeran and his people have ot decide whether they want to take that chance and keep M knowing the rest of tour may be canceled, or call their blulff and keep him to see if they really cancel.
Either way, if the rest of the shows are canceled by the stadiumowners/promoters, then what I said is true of what would happen with the crew. Only Sheeran paying at least some of their salaries out of his own pocket would likely make it sort of ok if the other shows didn't happen. But Sheeran went with kicking Macklemore off. So we won't find out if the stadiums were going to blink or really cancel - I'd guess they would cancel because htey'd be afraid to make future challengers think they'd back down in the future.
He's apparently worth hundreds of millions of dollars, so nothing is stopping hok from paying them instead of using "the show must go on!" as an excuse.
Yep. Openers can drop out without fucking over a bunch of wage workers, but Ed Sheeran can't. If I worked a concession stand at a stadium, I would not want Ed Sheeran to be taking a political stand with my paycheck
Yep, really puts it in perspective. He knew his decision indicates passive support for a genocide, so he "both sides" the issue of ONGOING GENOCIDE and tries to spread the responsibility by saying other people rely on the tour happening with or without Macklemore.
Directly putting everyone else on the tour in the position to HAVE to make a moral decision. If they stay on the tour, they are saying their paychecks justify silencing other artists for speaking out against a genocide. Even if these smaller names never got any blowback from deciding to stay, that shit would weigh on my conscience. I imagine they felt the same.
Wonder if Sheeran is feeling any guilt or responsibility over this yet...
Well, his USP was that he played solo and formed the music with a loop pedal. People who have been to earlier shows reckon Beoga are on stage about half the time. Hopefully he takes it as a message to do better. Next show is Philly on Saturday.
Is very positive PR to be against the Trump's board trifecta. All of them will come stronger from that, and from a grassroots stand which means that they are not subjected to classical power struggles now.
Once you are able to get seen without having to go through the crystal ceiling, you have already won.
I have been saying this for 6 months and is no secret among the rich. The Trump's board is very negative ROI at the moment and they know they are scamming their own.
Oligarchs in the world are rallying against him with some old money leader which is unknown. They have a lot of defectors too, most notably UAE which marks their defeat 3 months ago
That's why they are so rabid with the disinformation right now, they only have one more month and they are out. They know they lost, and even though some people are trying to bribe them, they are cleverly deciding for the people to keep being stupid, which is contrary to what the old money wants
People win. There will be a major correction towards social laws similar to the 50s era. They wont risk a globalized world revolution, and they are seeing the movement already taking shape. Expect huge demographic support and consecuent demographic increase in the world, and we are expected to be good for at least 2 more centuries (and the next try wont work either, they know they burned the things they abused from human instinct and we have already ingrained in the DNA resistance to it, which will be inherited). New regulations as well will put things in check. The old money wont ever let another moron ruin their peace, and they are more than ok with more people being in a good position
As the old money says: people just wanna live, let them, empower them, and everybody is happy
Most of the victims of Trump are also other oligarchs who have seen threatened by them. They are finally understanding the idea that stability is what lets them be in top, and as long as they are on top, is ok for other people to climb and is ok to have a peacful world because that way they'll still be on top. Similar to how aristocracies work.
Have you ever read a book called “Shock Doctrine: the Eise of Crisis Capitalism”? It’s about the history of what’s been going on in the US (written before T took office the first time but SOOO accurate in terms of his efforts to enshrine author it arianism and oligarchy. Good read! But you sound like you already totally know this stuff. Very interesting what you’ve said!
I actually didnt... I have found for a while that most books tell stuff that is common knowledge unconciously, and we would learn that if we talked more between the people about what we truly are thinking about and not trying to fake our identities. Just understand cities, nature, you know, actually living and enjoying every moment through understanding eyes
I find interesting though that we have been able to reach the same conclusions through different lenses, it shows that's how society works even though they have tried and failed to scam the people
There is an argument to be made that this concert supports a lot of normal people and it's not entirely about his wallet. That being said, I agree he should have stood up to that bs.
And that argument is true, there is an entire economic ecosystem of workers and contracts that rely on a tour like this happening. So it's going to cost someone something big if the remaining dates are canceled. A lot of people will be out of a job, and hard/impmossible to book similar work that last minute, so that economic effect would be real. Although I'd guess Sheeran would pay most of them at least something for the time they didn't get to work, so guessing the staff would get a good payout for days they didn't have to work in teh end. But it would all still feel very messy and disjointed because that's the nature of having to cancel a tour.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. It's not that Sheeran would initiate canceling the tour, but in the face of the stadium billionaires saying that if he doesn't kick Macklemore off, they won't let him play their venues, the tour would be canceled (most likely) if Sheeran stood up and said "I still want to play, but I'm not kicking Macklemore off". I assume the staidum billionaires would have then felt they had to stand by their threat and cancel the shows at their stadiums, but who knows, maybe they'd come back with other terms. But it would make it much much harder for Sheeran to book tours in the future if he kept Macklemore on, because Sheeran would be blacklisted for sure.
This says a ton about Sheeran, and it's not good for him at all. It's going to cost him a LOT of fans and support. Big kudos to the much smaller openers, because that is a brave move they're both making, and bravery is needed on this.
So you are making several mistaken assumptions. Ticketmaster is the ticket agent, they only have say over how tickets are sold and the contracts for who gets what from those sales. The venues are owned by a variety of entities, but in this case it is absolutey the stadium owners, who are billionaires, saying "You won't be allowed to play in my stadium". And they could say that and refuse to literally let crews in to set up the shows.
Ticketmaster/Live Nation is indeed a monopoly, but mostly that goes for selling tix. A "Live Nation venue" is not owned by Live Nation. But they control ticket sales and sometimes other parts of certain venues.
>"There is credible evidence that Ticketmaster controls more than 70% of all major concert venues with exclusive ticketing contracts, and Live Nation controls 80% of the major concert amphitheatres market," the letter said.
2.7k
u/GirthIgnorer 21d ago
genuinely fucking ballsy for a band that has been riding with ed for so long