Ed Sheeran is an interesting person. He is extremely popular, of course, but he also seems to be one of us. He doesn't stand above, and he intentionally does things to bring himself down to our mere-mortals level. One of those things is busking.
Sheeran sells out arenas, of course, and his popularity is global. But he sometimes will step outside (literally) and bring his music to the masses who might not have ever heard it. He recently did this in Bangalore, India where he was performing a set of shows. Only Sheeran might have regretted the move to busk.
As it turns out, Indian authorities said that Sheeran had no permit to do any busking on the busy road of Church Street. Halfway through performing "Shape of You," police officers appeared and literally pulled the plugs on Sheeran's amp, which, of course, stopped the pop-up show.
Ed Sheeran gets shut down while trying to busk in India
Many on social media complained that officers should not have stopped the show because Sheeran was not disrupting traffic. He was simply there trying to bring some joy to people during their daily lives while he played a few of his hits. This was supposed to be a shortened live show of the kind that people pay high dollars to see in an arena.
A police officer unplugs Ed Sheeran’s equipment during a street performance in India:
— Pop Base (@PopBase) February 10, 2025
“We have permission to be here, but this policeman is shutting it down. See you later!”
pic.twitter.com/X5MMq7Zlia
The singer took to Instagram later to say he did, indeed, have permission to play on the roadway. He wrote, "(The street performance) was planned out before, it wasn’t just us randomly turning up."
Let this be a lesson for all the kids out there. If you are deciding whether to busk or not, you might not want to get your start in India. Or, if you do, you might want to make sure that you have permission to play. At least, Sheeran did not get arrested; he simply had his show shut down.
One can also safely assume that he did have permission to play his arena shows. That might have caused great outrage from his fans. Plus, the Indian economy likely was improved by the draw at his arena shows. The same cannot be said of his busking performances.