Will Heffernan
A guitar, a foot pedal and a ginger on a stage. The ultimate one man show is the proper term for Ed Sheeran. Sheeran took the stage at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA and the whole crowd sang along to every song at the top of their lungs. Similar to Taylor Swift, Gillette stadium was the first stadium in America that booked Sheeran to play.
Sheeran opened the show with his newest album’s first single, “Castle on the Hill” and it got the crowd excited, energized and pumped up for the rest of the show. Sheeran actually spoke to the crowd quite a few times. Sheeran stated how his shows are basically just him and the crowd as his backup singers and dancers. Sheeran relied on the crowd to sing at the top of their lungs and dance like no one was watching, which they did. The crowd ended up being the “most polite crowd of North America,” according to Sheeran.
Sheeran performed classics like, “Photograph,” “Perfect,” “Thinking Out Loud,” “The A Team,” “Galway Girl,” “Sing” and his current hit single “Shape Of You.” The visuals on the screen were colorful and sometimes showed him traveling through the graphics, such as the visuals for “Castle on the Hill.”
Even though the set was only 17 songs, he was on stage for about two hours, mainly because he spoke to the crowd after each song, which was refreshing to see. He also thanked, “the boyfriends that didn’t want to be there,” as well as the “super dads” for coming to the show with their daughters or girlfriends because they loved them. He made a crowd of 54,000+ feel so intimate, like you were in a room with just him and his guitar.
Overall the concert was “perfect,” showing why Sheeran is one of the greatest songwriters of our generation.
You can catch Sheeran on his Divide Tour, which does the complete opposite, it unites everyone to have a good time. You can purchase tickets to his show here.
Anne Marie and Snow Patrol were the opening acts.
