Ed Sheeran had a sold out show tonight in Philadelphia.
Twitter was literally overflowing with posts about the show being empty, returned tickets, protests hampering the evening, and so on.
None of it was true.
Lincoln Financial Field was full — at least 60,000 people. So all of the shouting and rhetoric came to nothing. Sheeran will be fine on the rest of his dates.
He spoke to the crowd about the whole Macklemore-Gaza situation, addressing both October 7th and the ongoing war in Gaza. That’s all he’s responsible for. Macklemore made the mistake of dragging politics into shows where it was unexpected.
The singer also debuted a new band of heroic musicians who wouldn’t be stood down.
Sheeran’s speech is below. He played 21 songs and ended with his Marvin Gaye soundalike “Thinking Out Loud.”
All in all, Sheeran handled this debacle very well. The online rhetoric is out of control, full of fiction, no facts, and vitriol. Don’t believe a word of it. And PS the media outlets who leave out Sheeran’s remarks about October 7th. Shameful.
He began is remarks by saying:
“This is not usually how I would open the show, but before I play some songs tonight, I hope it’s okay if I say a few words about this last week. I’m used to my music being criticized, and I’m always happy to take that because I’m lucky. A lot of you like my stuff, and to be honest, I’m surprised. But this week, the criticism was about something much more important, and I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes, and I’m so, so sorry.”
| Ed introducing his new band tonight to the crowd in Philadelphia and telling them how they only had 3 days to rehearse pic.twitter.com/G12uSCE6Bv
— Ed Sheeran Access (@AccessEdSheeran) September 20, 2026
He added: “What happened in Israel and at the Supernova Music Festival on October 7 was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic, unjustifiable, and disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians’ lives, of children’s lives. The systemic injustice we’re seeing unfold in the West Bank cannot be overlooked. I am already speaking to people across the spectrum to work out how to make a contribution that helps victims of these terrible times, and listening and learning because I do not know enough.”
Ed Sheeran just gave a speech at his concert tonight. He talks about the suffering on BOTH sides of this conflict. What struck me most is I believe this is the first time that a major artist has spoken about the atrocities at the Nova music festival on stage since the immediate…
— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) September 20, 2026
