2000s Rock Frontman Opens for Ed Sheeran After His Tour Acts Quit: ‘Everybody Seems to Be Taking Sides’

Ed Sheeran has played several recent Loop Tour shows with no opener on the bill.

Saturday night in Atlanta, he had one. Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s “Know Before You Go” post earlier that day listed only a “special guest” before his 8 p.m. set.

It was Isaac Slade, the former frontman of The Fray.

Slade, 45, played a short set before Sheeran went on, including “How to Save a Life” and “You Found Me,” according to reports from the show. You know at least one of those.

“How to Save a Life” is certified Diamond by the RIAA, at 11 times platinum. “You Found Me” sits at 7 times platinum. Both certifications came through on the same day, Aug. 13, 2025.

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What Slade Said Onstage

In video from inside the stadium, Slade spoke to the controversy that’s followed the tour since September.

“Everybody seems to be taking sides in this world and that’s good,” Slade told the crowd. He called what’s happening in Gaza “wrong,” and said getting through it means “we’re going to need people to step into that middle place, that common ground.”

He also struck a hopeful note. “We will find a way through this together,” he said.

Related: Ed Sheeran’s Tour Keeps Losing Acts and the Internet Has Some Wild Replacement Ideas

Why Sheeran Needed an Opener

Macklemore played two Loop Tour shows at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium last month. He shouted “Free Palestine” and performed his protest song “Hind’s Hall.”

Days later, he was off the tour after Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft and other venues reportedly threatened to cancel shows he was part of. Finneas, Lukas Graham and the backing band Beoga then quit in solidarity with Macklemore.

Sheeran told fans in Philadelphia on Sept. 19 that he’d been “making mistakes” and was “so, so sorry” for how it all unfolded.

Slade and Sheeran Go Back

This wasn’t their first time on the same stage. In August, Slade joined Sheeran in Toronto for “How to Save a Life,” with Beoga playing on it too. That’s the same Beoga that quit the tour weeks later.

Before bringing Slade out, Sheeran told the crowd he’d been a fan of Slade’s “music, his songwriting,” and called it part of his “formative years as a teenager.”

Slade had left The Fray in 2022. In his own announcement that March, he wrote that he’d told the band “five or six years ago” that he was “getting ready to call it,” and that “now it’s finally time.” The band kept going without him.

Sheeran’s U.S. run wraps Nov. 7 at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium. The tour ends Dec. 11 in Mexico City.

Next: Ed Sheeran Cries Alone Onstage in Philadelphia: ‘I Am Making Mistakes. I’m So, So Sorry. I Don’t Want to Disappoint Fans’