Ed Sheeran Will Subtract His Audience Capacities for Special Gigs Around This Year’s Arena Tour
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Perhaps inspired by the intimacy of playing solely for a judge and a jury of his peers in the ongoing copyright trial he’s entangled in, Ed Sheeran will hit the road next month to play smaller venues for what he’s dubbed the “ – “ tour. (If you want to say it out loud, Sheeran suggests you pronounce it “Subtract Tour.”) The dates kick off May 19 at Clearwater, Florida’s Ruth Eckerd Hall and run in and around the dates of his “+ – = ÷ x Tour” (in Sheeranese, the “Mathematics Tour”), which finds him playing stadiums. With support from Ben Kweller, he’ll hit 14 theaters and auditoriums on the minimized run.
Tickets will be available to Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program participants on May 2 at 10 a.m. local time. Registration to become a Verified Fan begins on April 28 at 10 a.m. ET and ends April 30 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
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The date of tickets going on sale corresponds with the May 5 release of Sheeran’s upcoming “ – “ album. So far, the artist has released the songs “Boat” and “Eyes Closed” from the record. A documentary with a mathematical title, The Sum of It All, about Sheeran will also debut on Disney+ on May 3.
But for the time being, Sheeran is still stuck in the past as he defends the provenance of “Thinking Out Loud,” which he recently told jurors he wrote in Feb. 2014. On Thursday, Sheeran performed the track on the witness stand of a Manhattan federal court in an effort to shrug off comparisons to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On”; the family of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On” with Gaye, contend there are “striking similarities” between the two tracks. “It is my belief that most pop songs are built on building blocks that have been freely available for hundreds of years,” Sheeran has said in his defense.
In a Rolling Stone cover story, Sheeran described how the success of “Thinking Out Loud” was a bellwether validating his success. “When I wrote ‘Perfect’ and ‘Thinking Out Loud,’ I remember being like, ‘Oh, these are a bit cheesy,'” he said. “But at the time, being like, ‘I don’t know if I care.’ And they became the biggest ballads in the world that year. And you’re like, ‘Well, people must connect with cheese, then!'”
“ – “ tour dates:
May 19 – Clearwater, FL @ Ruth Eckerd Hall
May 26 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
June 2 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia
June 16 – Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
June 29 – Boston, MA @ Boch Center Wang Theatre
July 14 – Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre (Support TBA)
July 21 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
July 28 – Chicago, IL @ The Chicago Theatre
Aug. 11 – Minneapolis, MN @ State Theatre
Aug. 18 – Denver, CO @ Paramount Theatre
Aug. 25 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre (Support TBA)
Sept. 1 – Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Sept. 15 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
Sept. 22 – Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Auditorium
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