Ed Sheeran seems to be a fan favorite everywhere he tours, and the response he got during the opening night of his biggest Australian tour is a testament to that fact.
The “Thinking Out Loud” singer kicked off his Australian tour Saturday in front of a sold out crowd at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium. 50,000 fans congregated at the stadium to listen to their favorite pop star and Ed Sheeran did not disappoint them with a performance that had him drenched in sweat by the end of the show.
As is always the case with Sheeran, it was just him, his guitars and loop pedals that took the place of a band on Saturday. The crowd swooned to his music, mesmerized by the almost magical quality of the English troubadour’s ability to entertain crowds with only a guitar at his disposal – and his voice of course.
Courier Mail hailed Ed Sheeran’s performance in Brisbane , saying that it was one of the best solo performances Australia has witnessed for a long time.
“On a song like Take It Back it’s a virtuoso performance of multi-tasking, setting up a wall of rhythm and harmonies, launching into an extended rap, detouring into Stevie Wonder’s Superstition and Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine .”
After the performance, Ed shared a photo of the ecstatic crowd in Brisbane on his Instagram page.
Earlier in the day, Sheeran had expressed his excitement at the prospect of kicking off his tour in Australia with the tweet, “Kicking off the Australian stadium tour in Brisbane today and I can’t wait. See you all later.”
This is the first time that an artist is to play Australian and New Zealand stadiums completely solo, according to promoters. Ed’s performance in Brisbane was just the first of his six-date tour, which will also see the British crooner play to sold out crowds in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Auckland through the end of December.
The Daily Mail reports that Ed Sheeran touched down in Australia to perform and present awards at the ARIAs on Thursday night, where an interesting repartee with fellow English singer-songwriter James Blunt saw Ed becoming the talk of entertainment magazines all over the world.
As the Inquisitr reported yesterday, Ed Sheeran uploaded a picture with Blunt on his Instagram page, cheekily captioned, “We would like to announce our engagement.” That led to a proliferation of rumors around social media that Ed was in fact going out with Blunt.
While those rumors were obviously baseless, it did not stop Ed Sheeran’s fans (hilariously!) from coming out on social media, expressing their sadness and shock at the fact that Ed was in fact interested in a guy.
But it seems Blunt is not the only guy interested in Ed. On Thursday, while Sheeran was performing at ARIAs, Best Song winner Conrad Sewell joked that he would like to “get f***ed up” with the Thinking Out Loud singer.
Well, while all of that might have been said in good humor and for a hearty laugh, it does appear that Ed Sheeran is on a roll at the moment. Now that Australia has taken so warmly to the British singer, there is only one question that needs to be asked: Has Ed Sheeran got it all to be the biggest pop star of his generation?
[Photo by Glenn Hunt/Getty Images]
