Ed Sheeran returns to apolitical form at Atlanta show, with new opening act

In the days leading to Ed Sheeran’s Atlanta concert, his second since the Big Controversy, questions about everything but his music prevailed over those pertaining to it.

Will there be protests? Will there be an opening act? Will Sheeran say anything additional about last month’s fiasco? Will people show up?

Well, to some surprise, his Saturday night show at Mercedes-Benz Stadium was devoid of any drama and his music became the focus, completely ditching the controversy that has consumed his career for the past month as if it didn’t happen at all.

If needing a recap of all the contention, here’s the TL;DR version: Macklemore opened Sheeran’s shows at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium last month and called for a free Palestine. Shortly after, Macklemore was dropped from the tour (seemingly by venue owners, with New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft leading the charge, per all parties involved), and Sheeran’s remaining opening acts exited in solidarity.

At Saturday’s concert, none of that seemed to matter. In fact, it seemed like a distant memory.

There were no protests outside of the venue, unlike his Philadelphia concert. Similarly, once the show began, he spent roughly three hours making his performance the priority, never explicitly addressing last month’s drama. It was a fitting spectacle for someone who claims he “never wanted to be an activist musician.”

But the concert poked more holes in the sustainability of that approach.

Atlanta’s Loop Tour concert (partially promoting “Play,” the UK singer’s eighth studio album that dropped last summer) officially began at 7 p.m. with a special guest. Saturday morning, Mercedes-Benz Stadium announced there would be an opening act though declined to share the performer’s identity beforehand, when reached by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The show marked Sheeran’s first Loop Tour stop with an opener since Macklemore’s departure and Sheeran’s first Atlanta concert since 2023.

“Maybe it’s Taylor Swift,” some fans shared while waiting in line to enter the show. Reddit posts guessing the opener ranged from John Mayer to a local school choir.

At 7:10 p.m., Isaac Slade, former front man for rock band the Fray, took the stage — ceasing all the guessing games. It was an anticlimactic addition. Slade performed at City Winery on Friday night, and he joined Sheeran on stage at the Toronto Loop Tour stop in August, so his presence simply made sense.

He performed a handful of songs, including the Fray favorites “You Found Me” and “How to Save a Life,” and was met with rapturous applause from a modestly sized crowd.

“Can I say something?” Slade said midperformance.

He began his spiel by describing Macklemore and Ed Sheeran as two friends who found themselves on opposite ends of the political divide.

“Everybody seems to be taking sides on this one, and that’s good,” Slade told the crowd. “What’s happening over there is not right, but if we’re going to get through this, we also need people who are brave enough to step out into that middle place, that common ground, that bonfire in the middle of the field that sees both sides.”

It was hearty message of words that could’ve been summed up as propolitical neutrality.

Slade ended his set at 7:40 p.m. with an even more confusing message: “Power to the people.”

Around 8 p.m., more people filled Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and the show looked almost sold out, which was probably a consequence of dynamic pricing (floor seats for the concert sold for roughly $50 by the time the show started).

Fifteen minutes later, Sheeran, with guitar in hand, took the stage to the tune of his 2017 hit “Castle on the Hill.”

“My job is to entertain you, and we’re going to sing songs loudly,” the 35-year-old told the audience, adding that he wanted fans to lose their voices the next day.

With a loop station, Sheeran breezed through tracks “Shivers,” “The A Team,” and “Sapphire.” It was an impressive feat, considering he basically orchestrated all the song elements on the spot and performed them with no backing track. That skill anchored the night, further outlining Sheeran’s musical dexterity and why he has a song with quite literally everyone (from Beyoncé to Bruno Mars).

Those moments hit a high note for songs like “Supermarket Flowers” and “Give Me Love,” featuring guitar-bumping outros that made the tracks sound gargantuan when performed live. The stage lighting (green and blue beam lights for “Tenerife Sea,” fireworks for “Sapphire”) was also a highlight, adding fuel to Sheeran’s performance prowess.

His crowd engagement was like none other. He frequently talked (perhaps a bit too much) about his career journey (including a long recounting of his extensive copyright infringement battle, his main controversy until last month).

Sheeran also posed as a quasi-choir director of the crowd, motioning them to jump and dividing the stadium into a three-part harmony. For “Camera,” he instructed fans to take photos with their cellphone flash on, transforming Mercedes-Benz Stadium into a sky full of twinkling stars.

Sheeran’s penchant for rapping weakened his performance. He’s not a bad rapper, but when hearing his skills aloud for songs “Take It Back” and “Don’t,” it sounds more like karaoke than an honest effort.

Another unnecessary moment arrived during his message on unity toward the end of the show, Sheeran’s only reference to the tour drama.

“These last few weeks have really honed in on why I do what I do … and this is such a unifying, loving thing,” Sheeran said. “Everyone comes from different background, beliefs, politics, religion, and we can all stand side by side next to each other and there’s a kind of an understanding and a love that everyone feels in this room. I really think it’s a really important thing to protect spaces like this.”