There was a lot happening in Mumbai last week — Lakme Fashion Week X FDCI and, of course, the Ed Sheeran concert. And I was covering both... happily! The day Ed Sheeran’s Mumbai gig of his ‘+-=÷x’ tour was announced, it was a no-brainer that I needed to get a ticket. Though I had already seen him perform in Mumbai in 2017, why not another concert?! It’s Ed Sheeran after all. Like me, Ed too has evolved personally and professionally. He is now a father and has a varied set of hits, going beyond the romantic ballads he is known for.
With an opening by indie music star Prateek Kuhad, playing his first concert of 2024, and Calum Scott at Mahalaxmi Race Course on March 16, my phone was all set to capture many memorable moments. Dressed in all-black at first and then changing into a deep blue kurta with ‘Mumbai’ embroidered in Hindi, Ed performed to his biggest crowd ever in India. t2 was in the audience and here’s why Ed’s third gig in India was the best so far.
His big entry
The Grammy winner was back in India for the third time and this time it was bigger than ever — a bigger audience and a bigger stage. The last time he performed was in 2017 at Jio Garden in BKC (as part of his ‘Divide’ tour).
Edward Christopher Sheeran was back with his ‘Mathematics’ tour in India, his last stop. Unlike his last gig in Mumbai , the stage was stunning — Edward Christopher Sheeran owned the 360-degree revolving stage. It means, everyone in the audience could catch a glimpse of the man. The giant circular screen on the stage displayed a countdown to his performance and just when it went down to last 10 seconds, the excitement was infectious.
Wearing black denims and a black tee with Mumbai written on his back, he had the guitar in his hand while the clock read 7.30pm. He opened his set with Tides.
“Mumbai, I have been looking forward to this so much. This is going to be the best night on tour. It’s Saturday night; are you ready to let loose? I am going to play songs that I hope you know, this is the song from my album X (Multiply) and I hope you know this,” he said before breaking into I’m a Mess. The concert was a visual treat.
Edward, a true performer
Diljit Dosanjh brought the house down as he made a surprise appearance, singing Lover. The surprise didn’t end there... as Ed sang lines from the song. The crowd went berserk with excitement. “How do I follow that?” said Ed Sheeran after Diljit’s exit. The answer was to sing one of his big hits — Perfect
At a time when many artistes are charged with lip-syncing at concerts, Ed made it clear that his is a live set. “If anyone has come to see me live before, thank you for coming again. If anyone is here to see me live for the first time, I wanna explain what I am doing with my feet here. It is called a loop station. Everything you hear tonight is completely live, there is no backing track whatsoever, it is made live on the spot with this pedal controlled by my feet and in the end it is deleted and it will not be the same in the next show,” said Ed as he went on to give a demo to the audience.
Ed to AM to DD!
An hour into his performance (by then he had sung Castle on the Hill, Shivers, Eyes Closed and Don’t), the first surprise arrived at 8.45pm — Armaan Malik appeared to sing 2step along with Ed. I-pop sensation Armaan made fans scream and shriek in joy as he shared the stage with the blue-eyed hitmaker, singing in Hindi and English. “Mumbai, I have got to know this man very well over the last couple of years and I love this man. Please give Armaan Malik the love,” said Ed while giving a hug to AM. Wait, that’s not all, Armaan took the opportunity to make it more memorable for the packed areana by breaking into Shah Rukh Khan’s famous open-arms pose.
“Something that unites us all as Indians, I taught you a few days back, would you like to do it with me?” said Armaan and Ed followed.
The energy had reached its peak by now, with chants of “Armaan” and “Ed” filling the air.
The next few minutes delivered hits like Galway Girl, Thinking Out Loud and also Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself (Ed mentioned he wrote the song). Another moment that got the crowd to go wow: “I write a lot of songs. I don’t have hobbies, I write songs and play at shows and that’s all I do. And sometimes I write songs that other people end up singing. I wanna play you a song that I wrote back in 2015 and it was made very famous by someone else but I want to sing it for you now. I had written this on a tour bus, driving from one city to another.”
After singing a few slow songs, including Happier, Ed did something he has “never done before” — welcome Diljit Dosanjh and sing in Punjabi.
The Punjabi singer and actor’s presence was the biggest surprise. It was almost like multiverses coming together. The crowd sang along, jumped and danced.
his songs and backstory...
The almost 150-minute performance was high on energy and the pace never slackened. With the help of a revolving stage, he constantly interacted with the audience, thanking the crowd and often decoding the story behind songs like Eyes Closed.
Sheeran mentioned that he had written this song when he lost a close friend. He said: “When you lose someone close to you, you suddenly go through denial. You don’t believe that it has happened. You try to tell yourself that you are going to see this person again. I had my best friend pass away two years ago and we came from the same area of London. I felt that whenever I left my house I would bump into him... until his funeral and that was when it hit hard that he wasn’t coming back and I wrote this song during that period... when he died and his funeral.”
“Got to play 2step with @armaanmalik for the first time this weekend in Mumbai; was very special!” shared Ed Sheeran on Instagram
He also shared that his first hit, The A Team, wasn’t a hit immediately. “I wrote this song when I was 18 years old, when I was playing in pubs in London, doing open-mic nights, playing to empty rooms. Every week I would go in with different songs and every week you would think that week will change it all, and every week you would be proved wrong. I wrote and thought this is a special song and I went in and in my mind I thought this is the song that is going to change everything and I played... and no one cared. Weeks after, no one cared... but I believed in this song as it was a good song and weeks after I kept playing it and sometimes people would turn up and sometimes a lot of people would turn up and then this song became a minor hit in the UK and I signed up with a record label. Then it became a big hit in the UK....” recalled Teddy (his nickname).
a well-balanced playlist
His two-and-a-half-hour performance of over 30 songs was a stellar mix. From hits like Photograph, Perfect, Shape of You, Give Me Love, Afterglow to tracks like Bloodstream, Don’t and ending with the high-octane and massive hit Bad Habits from his 2021 album = , it was all wow and wow. Sheerios were pleased with his playlist that had millennials to Gen Z singing their hearts out.