“We will find a way through this together,” singer says as special guest for latest Loop Tour concert<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter performing a gig without openers, Ed Sheeran<\/a> brought on Isaac Slade, former singer of the Fray<\/a>, to serve as his opening act Saturday as the Loop Tour resumed in Atlanta.<\/p>\n \n\tFollowing Macklemore\u2019s exit<\/a> \u2014 which was followed by fellow supporting acts<\/a> Finneas, Aaron Rowe and Lukas Graham \u2014 Sheeran played sans opener September 19 in Philadelphia, his first show since Macklemore was forced off the tour<\/a>. Sheeran\u2019s Massachusetts concerts last week were canceled<\/a> due to the nor\u2019easter, giving the singer extra time to find a new opening act.<\/p>\n \n\tPrior to the Atlanta concert Saturday, it was revealed Sheeran would take the stage closer to his usual set time as a then-unannounced artist had filled the opening act slot. That artist was Slade, who co-founded and served as lead singer of the Denver pop rock band the Fray from 2002 to 2022. Slade embarked on his first solo tour in late 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhen the Loop Tour passed through Toronto in August, Sheeran brought out Slade<\/a> to perform the Fray\u2019s \u201cHow to Save a Life.\u201d Now performing in Macklemore\u2019s slot \u2014 the rapper was originally booked to open the Atlanta show \u2014 Slade talked about both taking sides and finding middle ground.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cEverybody seems to be taking sides in this world and that\u2019s good. What\u2019s happening over there [in Gaza] is wrong but if we\u2019re going to get through it, we\u2019re going to need people to step into that middle place, that common ground,\u201d Slade said (via Billboard<\/a>).<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThat bonfire in the middle of the field that sees both sides, that understands that peace is not a lack of conflict. Peace is not a blank canvas that we need to guard and be polite. [Peace] holds enough beauty, enough tragedy, enough sorrow, enough joy and life if we learn how to integrate it and hold each other in balance. We will find a way through this together.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSheeran\u2019s Loop Tour continues on October 10; it\u2019s unclear if Slade will also accompany him to that Indianapolis show or if another \u201cspecial guest\u201d is on tap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“We will find a way through this together,” singer says as special guest for latest Loop Tour concert…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[24229,88,216,367036],"class_list":["post-870831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ed-sheeran","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-the-fray"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}