Ed Sheeran street performance in India shut down by police

Ed Sheeran didn’t get the warmest of welcomes in the Indian city of Bengaluru yesterday. Local police authorities pulled the plug — literally — on the British pop star’s street performance ahead of his concert.

Video footage of the Sunday morning incident went viral online showing the moment a cop disconnecting the Grammy winner‘s audio equipment during a live rendition of his chart-topping hir “ Shape of You” on Church Street, a busy thoroughfare in the southern city tech hub also known as Bangalore.

The police reportedly said the singer was not given permission to perform in the area, which is required to prevent congestion.

“A member among the event organizers came to meet me to seek permission for the streetside performance at Church Street. I refused because Church Street gets very crowded. That is the reason he was asked to vacate the place,” Bengaluru Police deputy commissioner Shekar T Tekkannanavar said according to the ANI news agency.

Karnataka’s home minister Gangadharaiah Parameshwara explained Monday that Sheeran is “a very famous singer” and said that chaos would be expected at such an event.

“To prevent that, police had not given him permission,” he said, adding: “In spite of that, he has come and tried to perform, so police prevented him. Nothing beyond that.”

In a social media post hours later, Sheeran argued that he did have approval to perform on the street.

“We had permission to busk, by the way. Hence, us playing in that exact spot was planned out before. It wasn’t just us randomly turning up,” Sheeran said, according to the AFP news agency.

“All good though,” he added.

The 33-year-old, who’s in the midst of a 15-day tour in India, went on to perform at this scheduled show at an open-air venue later Sunday night, CBS News reported.

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