Opening act

Uh, we'll try and see if somebody's actually read it or they're just gonna have opinions about it.

Um, be careful, uh, with your opening act.

Uh, this is not a message for Ed Sheeran, actually, this time, believe it or not.

Um, uh, somewhere in there, we're gonna have to talk about, uh, which Warriors are m- staying and which are leaving, and also who can kick.

It all started when his friend Baklamal was dropped as the opening act.

His crime? Saying the words Free Palestine on stage.

In protest, other support acts on the tour dropped out, including Sheeran's own backing band.

In an effort to restore his US tour and his reputation, Ed Sheeran addressed his fans in Philadelphia.

What happened in Israel and at the Nova Music Festival on October 7th was horrific.

And so up to this point, he's managed to not get embroiled in controversies.

And when he has spoken about politics, it tends to be support for ukraine which is in britain very uncontroversial criticizing brexit i mean that is a divisive issue but but there's not a great risk in that you know speak for gay rights again these are things that it's not like he's got no political opinions but i think that you know the issue of israel and palestine is on another scale in terms of the uh obviously the the emotions involved

Is there a precedent for this? Dorian, a global star like Ed Sheeran being sunk by something his support act said or did?

So it's like you're being forced to take a side.

And what we saw last week, you know, the Support Act, Macklemore got fired, then all the other... support acts and his band all quit the tour as well so he threw together a new band and he went off stage but i think he botched it i mean he said last week all i want to do is sing songs and go home yep and that's what he should have done

yeah

and he didn't he ended up doing a political speech And you just think, oh, no, you know, why did you do that? And he was reading it off a teleprompter, so it didn't even seem sincere anyway.

But yes, every one of those horror gigs and I bring it up.

Why? Because opening acts.

I was obviously an opening act my whole life.

I mean, I've only been touring is like the guy who headlines the theater three years.

But we've probably never discussed either of them in 20 years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I bring them up because I was talking about opening acts.

I was their opening act, okay? This whole Macklemore thing that's going on right now where he's opening for Ed Sheeran, you're the opening act.

If your political opinions are abhorrent, wouldn't the free market decide this? And what stops this from affecting our side down the road? We fought against this cancel culture for how long? At first glance, I went, eh, I don't really care.

But the more I sit with this, what happens when an opening act says, I don't want you to trans kids?

Mm-hmm.

And then they go, well, get rid of them.

Well, and Ed Sheeran, knowing that he's far left, brought him on the tour.

So maybe Ed Sheeran and maybe other artists have learned something about who they have opening up for them because I guarantee you this is now going to be a thing.

This is now going to be a thing where, and by the way, opening acts need to know their place.

Like,

But now all the acts have dropped out that Ed has nobody for.

Any opening acts at the moment.

And this one is for Marie.

I had to talk about this.

Blessed? [laughs] Blessed?

Everything in this opening act is kind of amped up by- In a weird way.

Like, when he goes to talk to this, his friend, like the score is really, like, pushing, like, Hans Zimmer-

Mm-hmm.

If I were sitting across from you drinking a beer, not an IPA, and I were telling you about the show, it would go a little something like this.

What I'll be doing here is I'm gonna slowly warm up, set the scene a little, talk about the opening acts, but if you just wanna cut right to the Slayer stuff, jump to the 21-minute mark.

21 minutes, that's where Slayer starts.

Everything before that is optional color.