Zach Bryan has added another stadium to his collection of record crowds.
The country singer-songwriter played to 73,538 people at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Saturday, Oct. 3, the largest audience for any event in the venue’s history, according to the stadium. “Tonight, Zach Bryan broke the Gillette Stadium attendance record with 73,538 fans!” Gillette Stadium wrote on Instagram after the show. Tour promoter AEG also announced the milestone, Variety reported.
Saturday’s concert was the second of two straight nights in Foxborough on Bryan’s With Heaven On Tour, the stadium run he began in March.
Passing Ed Sheeran
The old Gillette record belonged to Ed Sheeran, who drew 71,723 fans on July 1, 2023, according to CBS News Boston. Sheeran’s show, in turn, had broken a mark U2 set at the stadium in 2009.
The home of the New England Patriots lists a capacity of 64,628, but Billboard noted that seating setups can change for concerts.
Enormous crowds have become something of a signature for Bryan, a 30-year-old Navy veteran. In September 2025, he became the first artist to play Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, where 112,408 fans set a record for the biggest ticketed concert audience in U.S. history, Variety reported. That show beat the 110,905 that George Strait drew in Texas in 2024.
A ‘Free Palestine’ shirt, two nights in a row
Bryan performed both Foxborough shows in a black T-shirt reading “Free Palestine,” Billboard and CBS News Boston reported. Below the slogan were a pine tree and the Revolutionary War-era phrase “An Appeal to Heaven,” and CBS said some of his bandmates sported shirts with similar slogans. According to Billboard, he did not address the shirt from the stage.
The shirt landed at a venue with a recent history on the issue. Last month, Macklemore lost his opening slot for the rest of the U.S. leg of Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour after the rapper said “Free Palestine” and performed his protest song “Hind’s Hall” while opening for Sheeran at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Sept. 4 and 5.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who also owns Gillette Stadium, said in a statement at the time that “Macklemore’s recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community” meant the rapper’s participation in Sheeran’s planned Sept. 25 and 26 concerts in Foxborough “would cross that line.” Macklemore answered on Instagram that “Antisemitism is real” while maintaining that criticism of Israel and support for a free Palestine are not the same as hostility toward Jewish people, CBS News Boston reported.
Messina Touring Group, the tour’s promoter, said multiple venues had signaled they would bar the rapper, according to Billboard. Sheeran has said the decision to remove Macklemore was the promoter’s, not his. Sheeran’s remaining opening acts quit the tour in solidarity with Macklemore, and his Gillette dates were later canceled because of a nor’easter.
Variety said a spokesperson for Kraft had not answered its request for comment on Bryan’s shirt. Variety also cautioned that a widely shared statement credited to Bryan on Saturday appeared to come from an X account posing as the singer.
What’s next
Bryan closes the With Heaven On Tour on Saturday, Oct. 10, at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Auburn University’s campus in Alabama, according to his official tour schedule. The tour, his largest to date, spans more than 40 dates in North America and Europe, according to Variety.
