As the Mumbai traffic came to a crawl because everyone was rushing to get to the concert, I found myself among the thousands trying to reach the Mahalaxmi Racecourse in time to watch Ed Sheeran live! The venue was massive, and it was teeming with ‘Sheerios’ — screaming for Ed.
He owned the stage as soon as he got on, mesmerising the audience by his presence and aura. The atmosphere was electric! He is a brilliant performer and took the record number of people — about 50,000 of them reportedly — on an emotional journey throughout the energetic performance.
A unique experience
Everything about it was unique. The stage was circular, with the audience on all sides and Ed spent almost three hours effortlessly running around facing every side making the performance even more immersive and personal for fans.
Ed himself is a unique performer. He uses his looping setup to create layers of sounds with his guitar, vocals and occasionally some keys. He was creating live loops with cascading sounds and often involving the audience, forming a soundscape like no other artiste I’ve witnessed before. It’s a welcome change from the overproduced, sonically saturated live performances.
Some special guests joined in including Alicia Enstrom on violin for Galway Girl and Armaan Malik for 2step. Armaan and Ed concluded their track with the iconic SRK pose, which was a fun little nod to the Bollywood icon. The biggest surprise of the show was when Ed invited Diljit Dosanjh on stage and they performed his hit song Lover. The audience went crazy, and Ed also sang parts of the song, possibly singing in Punjabi for the first time!
The set list was perfect, with Perfect getting the most overwhelming and emotional response from the audience. The show concluded with super energetic renditions of Shape of You, Bad Habits and I especially enjoyed the last song You Need Me, I Don’t Need You which was a great showcase of his singing, rapping and looping abilities.
He thanked everyone for spending their evening with him, and quickly exited the stage leaving the entire arena satisfied but still wanting more. It was a phenomenal experience, unlike any other, and I’m happy that I got to witness such a first in the country. Ed Sheeran’s performance is looping in my memories much like his loops on stage and I’m eager to watch him again. ‘Thinking out loud,’ this was a pretty cool experience.
