Ed Sheeran is everywhere at the moment. By his estimations, Sunday night’s gig at the Royal Albert Hall was his sixth of the week, coming at the end of a short tour of intimate venues in London and Brighton to warm up for his summer stadium shows. On Tuesday, he’ll take part in the Concert For Ukraine fundraiser in Birmingham before two more warm-up gigs at the Alexandra Palace Theatre later in the week.
This ubiquity can be draining, but Sunday’s show, which came at the end of a week of Teenage Cancer Trust gigs at the grand old venue, featuring Yungblud, Liam Gallagher and more, saw Sheeran go pleasantly off script and dig into all corners of his discography during a light, loose and conversational show.
Towards the start of the gig – which saw Sheeran being introduced by Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown – the singer told the crowd that, owing to the venue’s famous acoustics and the fact that his new band have a night off, the set would lean more heavily than usual on the quieter side of his catalogue. For longtime fans, this meant the airing of rarities such as debut album track U.N.I. and Leave Your Life, written for his baby daughter. While this satisfied the die-hards and gave something different to what the stadiums of the UK will experience this summer, the show quickly became untethered, with loved-up acoustic jam after loved-up acoustic jam blending into one another quickly.
The chatty show was also peppered with stories from across Sheeran’s career and life, told in an impossibly relaxed manner between songs – it’s hard to remember sometimes that, compared to his usual surroundings, playing the Royal Albert Hall is for Sheeran like a pub’s back room would be for most others. Some of his stories landed well, like the tale of how Sheeran sent the demo of Love Yourself over to Justin Bieber’s team without thinking while severely drunk on his tour bus. Then, conversely, there was the deeply relatable story told before First Times, where Sheeran insisted the crowd remember that, even when you’re headlining Wembley Stadium, it’s the small things in life that you need to cherish.
While the lack of bandmates and any real production often saw the set lag and lack much dynamism, it only took the first joyous stabs of Castle On The Hill or the world-beating one-two punch of Shape Of You and Bad Habits in the encore to remind you why Sheeran is preparing to play five Wembley Stadiums. Regardless of the slight detours he took at the show, he remains an unstoppable force in pop that can turn it on in the blink of an eye.
