Opening his stadium tour at Croke Park in Dublin, Ed Sheeran seemed to have borrowed his production from local heroes U2. The huge construction had a remarkably similar design to the Irish rock band’s 360° tour (from 2009-11), with a circular stage beneath a cylindrical LED screen surrounded by a set of giant spiky pylons. It was as if an alien city had sprung up in the centre of the Gaelic football stadium, its sci-fi lights and screens twinkling and glittering beneath the looming night sky. It was 2022: a Space Ed-yssey.
The usually lone troubadour had even brought a band, with each musician stranded on his own satellite platform as the tiny star at its centre whipped around in a circle on a constantly revolving conveyor belt, like some kind of musical sushi offering. Having started out at open mic nights, Sheeran had progressed to stadiums as a one-man band by 2018.
But for his post-pandemic return to touring, the 31-year-old had elected to shake things up a bit. Reminiscing about his journey starting when he was brought to see Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice in a Dublin pub in 2004, he recalled “I saw a man on stage with one guitar captivate an audience, and I thought I’d love to do that. But my taste spans many different things, which is why tonight you will hear lots of genres.”
By the second song, BLOW, electric guitars were firing off heavy metal leads to thunderous drums as huge flames shot out from the stage. It was Edtallica! For the atmospheric Bloodstream he looped up stacks of weird vocals as it all got a bit Radio-Ed. On Don’t and You Need Me he went into full high speed rapping mode: Emin-Ed. Recent singles Shivers, Bad Habits and 2 Step dialled up his penchant for fluid R’n’B in the style of Justin Timb-Ed-Lake (sorry).
Sometimes he goes a bit Ed Dylan, taking it all down for some tightly picked acoustic guitar and vocals, delivering an impressively plaintive version of Irish folk song The Parting Glass. And, of course, a fiddler came out for cheesy cod-Riverdance jig Galway Girl, which is probably intended to summon the spirit of Dexys Midnight Sheeran but comes over more Ed Doonican. To be fair, the Irish audience sang along with the Suffolk minstrel, so I guess he got away with that one.
