Ed Sheeran
TSB Arena, Wellington, March 8
There’s a lot about Ed Sheeran that I didn’t know. I’ve always been a fan of singer-songwriters and I thought he was great for making this kind of music cool again for the tweens and teens.
And sure enough Wellington’s TSB Arena was chock-a-block with mostly female teenagers and whoever they managed to drag along.
He also introduces the audience to two other great young songwriters, Passenger and Gabrielle Apin and later brings both of them back to the stage for beautiful duets.
From the get go it is clear that this 22-year-old from Sussex had the crowd under control. Sheeran is not only an extremely gifted songwriter. He’s an entertainer, a natural born rock star.
On the stage all by himself, shaggy red locks, black T-shirt, army shorts and sneakers with just his well-worn acoustic guitar he’s got the air of one of those great musicians you encounter now and then in smaller bars and clubs. Artists I enjoys immensely buy somehow never really expect to fill stadiums and make thousands of girls cry loudly in delight.
But Sheeran is singing from his soul and having the audience at his command. He’s looping a lot (a technique lots of Kiwis have been introduced by Mihirangi Fleming on New Zealand Got Talent) – recording little bits and creating his own backing band. He not only makes the whole arena sing at his will, he also shuts them up, if he wants to perform one of his quieter songs.
His set covers everything from beautifully crafted ballads to those amazingly looped and layered stompers. And man, that boy can talk fast and rap even faster. At one stage he even put away his microphone and fills the arena with his voice, showing off his pure talent.
The range of music he goes through is amazing and at the end of the night, his claim that Prince Harry was the world’s most lusted after red-head has seriously to be debated.
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