Guitar Center opens badly-timed competition to win opportunity to open for Ed Sheeran

Guitar Centre is running an ill-timed competition to win the chance to open for Ed Sheeran.

Os próximos shows “Loop” de Sheeran estão atualmente sem artistas de abertura depois que Macklemore foi retirado da turnê por causa de seu discurso apaixonado “free Palestine” feito enquanto abria para Sheeran no Gillette Stadium, em New Jersey.

The speech prompted calls for Macklemore’s removal from figures like Pink and the Israeli American Council, and Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft later confirmed that he found Macklemore’s speech “deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community”, resulting in his dismissal.

Since then, all of Sheeran’s support acts and backing band have dropped out of the tour, with FINNEAS, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Beoga all making statements supporting Macklemore.

Amidst all of this, Guitar Center has been running a competition inviting unknown artists to apply for a chance to open for Sheeran at his Mexico City show on October 7.

The contest launched on August 19, ahead of the ongoing Macklemore situation, but at time of writing, the application page remains live.

Sheeran falou sobre a situação, dizendo que não era “não complice” e que estava “chocado com o conflito entre Israel e Palestina” e vê o “sofrimento e dor causados em ambos os lados” como uma “tragédia”.

Meanwhile, recent Sheeran support acts BIIRD and Myles Smith also came out in support of the rapper. Irish trad-folk band BIIRD wrote that “we stand unequivocally behind every word [Macklemore] said,” while Smith said that “what Palestinians are enduring is devastating and impossible to look away from.

No child, no family, no innocent person should have to live under bombing, displacement, hunger, grief or fear.”.

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters waded into the debate to call Sheeran a “little prick” while praising Macklemore for doing “the right thing”, and Massive Attack also spoke on the controversy: “’Neutrality’ in the face of the slaughter of more than 20,000 children can never be neutrality”.

Sheeran ainda não respondeu ao cancelamento de seus artistas de apoio e a esses comentários.

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