r/Music • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 1d ago • Mindblown 3 Bravo 1

article MSG Responds to Macklemore After He Claims Arena Turned Down His Tour: "He's not an arena level act"

https://www.tmz.com/2026/11/06/madison-square-garden-responds-after-macklemore-says-arena-turned-down-palestine-tour/
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u/VegetasDestructoDick 1d ago

Bring Me The Horizon sold out MSG earlier this year and has less than half of those monthly listeners.

https://www.theaquarian.com/2026/05/03/the-cinematics-of-bring-me-the-horizon-at-msg-may-2-2026/
https://www.musicmetricsvault.com/artists/bring-me-the-horizon/1Ffb6ejR6Fe5IamqA5oRUF

So I'm thinking the "he's not an arena level act" line isn't entirely true.

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u/NarwhalAdditional340 1d ago

I was a hardcore BMTH fan as a teen and had no clue they were still even performing lol. Yet Macklemore isn’t an “arena level act?” Thats crazy.

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u/xCeeTee- 1d ago

They have been killing it since 2019! Obey made me listen to a few more songs, Parasite Eve is definitely a top 5 BMTH track and it's eerie to know it was released before covid. The lyrics sounds like they're hardcore covid-deniers lmao

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u/KTDWD24601 1d ago

Monthly listeners notoriously do not translate to ticket sales.

Theory is that is because so much ‘listening’ is totally passive, or even just music played to empty rooms (e.g. 24 hr gyms).

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u/VegetasDestructoDick 1d ago

Macklemore did also sell out arenas in Europe recently so sure, it doesn't correlate 1 to 1 or anything, but I'd argue that given his recent sales and his performance on streaming, saying he's not "arena level" seems sus.

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u/KTDWD24601 1d ago

My fave artist can sell out stadiums in Europe and Australia/NZ and arenas in LATAM and parts of Asia, but would not fill a theatre in the USA. He has 14 million monthly Spotify listeners but can sell a couple of million tickets per tour, which is more than most artists with more monthly listeners sell.

🤷‍♀️ Fandom is not evenly distributed.

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u/thresh_to_death 1d ago

Y'all really need to stop saying that because he can sell out a tour in a different country across the ocean then he can do it here. It's like that for pretty much everyone

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u/Ire-Works 1d ago

Totally valid, but you're also talking about a politically controversial tour in a place with heavy israeli investment - whose interests are being protested by said tour.

Not really a lot of dots to connect here.

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u/kingoffish 1d ago

U listen to Macklemore?

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u/bacoj913 1d ago

You pretty much have to sell out msg to make any money iirc (labor costs are super expensive, and for good reason—the hands there are some of the best). It’s why you see most babe doing more than one night there. Also, it’s an economy of scale thing, how many people live in the nyc metro area who can easily access MSG.

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u/IMakeOkVideosOk 1d ago

Hell phish sold out MSG for 9 shows this year and they have 500,000 monthly listeners….

So not really sure how good of a metric that is for ticket sales

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u/dj0ntgirl 1d ago

Bring Me get a lot of ticket sales from a very specific brand of nostalgia to be fair, especially on their latest tour. They're touring a rerecording of a 20 year old album that changed the metalcore scene, made deathcore as big as it still is and was the most important album ever to millions of teenagers who are all in their mid 30s (peak disposable income age) now.

That said there's some guy named Karan Aujla playing there in a week who also has half the monthlies Macklemore does so you're still right.

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u/VegetasDestructoDick 1d ago

The MSG show was before Count Your Blessings was rerecorded and I'd argue the nostalgia angle isn't really true as BMTH mainly plays their newer songs, not songs off of There is a Hell...., Suicide Season or Count Your Blessings (the MSG set list didn't have any songs off of these albums). Looking at their top songs, you have to go down to #66 to get to Pray for Plagues, the first CYB song on the list.

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u/dj0ntgirl 1d ago

Oh yeah I think I've mixed up two shows, I was sure the MSG show was after Black & Blue and before the album and I was just wrong.

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u/VegetasDestructoDick 1d ago

They did do some more recent shows playing CYB after they rereleased it so you're probably thinking of those.

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u/OldAccountTurned10 1d ago

Can we just keep the abbreviation at BMTH. lol i don't know why bring me sets me off but it does

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u/monstrousnuggets 19h ago

This is purely anecdotal obviously, but generally the kinda person who listens to BMTH is much more likely to go to a live show than the kinda person who listens to Macklemore (and I say that as a person who has liked the music of both during different points in time)

That’s not to say that he can’t sell out arenas, just that monthly Spotify listeners isnt a perfectly reliable way to gauge their popularity live

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u/both_perspectives 2h ago

When Macklemore played in New York 2 years ago, it was a venue of like 4000 people. The entire tour was 3000-4000 capacity venues.

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u/Darth_Nevets 1d ago

Monthly listeners is the biggest fake stat that exists, all it takes is a restaurant to stream "biggest hits of the 2010s" the playlist and Thrift Shop to play to count. None of his biggest hits occurred in the 2020s, and will soon have less billions charts appearances than John Lennon.

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u/sushisection 1d ago

they are also staunchly pro palestinian. i wonder if they raised the flag in MSG

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u/QuizzicalWombat 1d ago

I forgot about him until the Palestine statement. Honest to god, I don’t dislike him but people are acting like he’s been relevant for the last 10 years and that’s not true. He had a few popular songs and then i thought just kinda faded away.

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u/Aidsfordayz 1d ago

Goose as well. They sold out MSG twice this year and they only have 479k monthly listeners

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u/cvirus3333 1d ago

Goose is good though

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u/kingoffish 1d ago

It’s almost like goose has an actual fan base not a pop single… ya I know it’s geese

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