Last night was a crazy night in Nashville because the amazing singer/songwriter…
…Ed Sheeran came to join us for a night of sing-a-longs
Ed Sheeran has been dominating the singer/songwriter realm since he released his debut album “+” in September 2011 and his debut single “The A Team” heated up the charts! He went on to release 4 more singles from that album including: “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You”, “Lego House”, “Drunk”, “Small Bump”, and “Give Me Love”. The album has gone on to sell millions of copies and the rest is history.
+
Prior to “+”, Ed was just a young man from England who learned to play the guitar at a young age and began writing songs when he was in high school. He started recording music in 2005 and released his first independent EP “The Orange Room”. Then he decided to move to London in 2008 at the age of 16 in an attempt to dedicate his life to his music. He played over 300 shows in 2009 and admitted that one time he played for just the sound guy because nobody showed up to hear him play.
Ed moved to Los Angeles, California in early 2010 after becoming disheartened by how many gigs he had to play and the small audiences. He played open mic nights in Inglewood and around the LA area until he gained momentum and was invited to perform on “The Foxxhole” which is a Sirius XM radio show ran by musician/actor Jamie Foxx!
#JamieFoxx
Jamie invited him to jam at his house and Ed stayed for a week, slept on his couch, and recorded new songs. In January 2011 Ed released an EP called “No 5 Collaborations Project” and it went to #2 on the iTunes albums chart! Then out of the blue, Ed received a phone call from a unexpected fan. The fan introduced himself by saying “Hi, it’s Elton”. That’s right! Ed received a personal phone call from Elton John himself who is apparently so interested in new music that he bought Ed’s EP and listened to it. Elton put Ed under his wing as a mentor and soon after he was signed by Atlantic Records! Ed is now a superstar and he always was…we just didn’t know it yet!
#EdAndElton
The most recent music from Mr. Sheeran is his album “X” that was released in June 2014 and “X” stands for “multiply”. Ed worked with superstar producers Rick Rubin and Pharrell Williams on his latest project and the end result is incredible! His debut single from “X” is called “Sing” and it peaked at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart making it Ed’s highest charting single in the US! The song is a new kind of sound for him and was produced by Pharrell!
X
Check out the amazing music video for “Sing”:
#Sing
Last night there were throngs of young girls one might expect to see at a Justin Bieber concert! They had signs, handmade t-shirts, X album capes, and smiles on their faces.
I had a great seat at the show thanks to my friend Karoline and right at 7:30 the lights went down and on came the London band “Rudimental”. There were many band members and two female lead singers:
Anne Marie and Bridgette
I was very interested in how every single song sounded like it was a whole new sound and a whole different band! That was certainly unique!! Their best performance of the night, hands down, was “Waiting All Night”. It was absolutely phenomenal!
There was a short intermission and set change to 4 feedback speakers, 2 microphones, and a guitar loop pedal…because that’s all Ed Sheeran really needs to put on a show!
It was so funny to see just one person walk to the stage in an arena and at 8:31 pm, Ed Sheeran did just that! He walked up to the mic with a warm reaction from the crowd and girls were screaming for him!
He started out right into “I’m A Mess” and then he said: “How are you NASHVILLE? My name is Ed and for the next 2 hours it’s going to be you and me and my job is to entertain you. The goal at the end of the night is to lose your voice from singing.” 😀
Next up was his hit “Lego House”, followed by a mashup of “Don’t”, Chris Brown’s “Loyal”, and Blackstreet’s “No Diggity”. That was an awesome mashup, and just so you know…Ed is now confirming that the song is about his ex-girlfriend Ellie Goulding and how she cheated on him with One Direction’s Niall Horan!
#CheaterCheaterPumpkinEater
Next up was “Take It Back”, a moving performance of “One”, “Bloodstream”, “Tenerife Sea”, and a mashup of “Runaway” and the Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”.
Then the hilarious part of the show came when Ed Sheeran told a story about his ex-girlfriend who was going to move away to go to university and study how to care for animals. They were driving down a dirt road and she saw a chicken who had been hit by a car. She said she wanted to save it and Ed said “C’mon, he’s dead!”. HAHA He said: “I took a lot of afternoon naps when I was 18. I still take a lot of afternoon naps actually. I woke up 3 hours later and the chicken was dead. This song is an ode to a chicken.” Then he sang a wonderfully sweet version of “Little Bird”.
#LittleBird
Then Ed said to the crowd: “Everyone chill. Please be quiet and calm your singing. This song took me the longest to write for the last album. Let’s take it down for a bit.” After a few I love you Ed’s and I love you more’s…you could hear a pin drop! It was one of the most gripping performances I’ve ever seen as Ed paid tribute to his late grandfather in song. It was called “Afire Love”.
Next up was “Thinking Out Loud” and then my favorite Ed Sheeran song of all-time: “Give Me Love”. Ed told the audience: “I know Nashville has great singers so let’s start off this song quiet and let it build”…and the love certainly filled the whole arena! 😀
Then at 9:45, Ed said “Nashville, this is my last song” and everyone turned to each other and said “NO! AHHH!”. I thought it was incredible that his show went by so fast! It was like everyone was having so much fun and his music was so experiential. We all lost track of time during his show! He sang “I See Fire”, put his guitar down, and walked off stage.
Time literally flew by!
We knew he wouldn’t leave without an encore and less than a minute later, he came back to the spotlight 🙂 He performed an incredible (what seemed like 8 minutes long) version of “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You” followed by a beautiful “The A Team”.
Ed said with joy: “We have one more chance to lose our voices! I hope you enjoyed yourself!!!” I thought that was so sincere and then Ed ripped into his current single “Sing”. Before the song was over he said “One more time, thanks for having me Nashville. I want you to keep singing this when you leave, get in your car, drive home, go to bed, and wake up in the morning!” It was endearing and such a nice thing to tell your fans!
#JustKeepSinging
All in all, I was happy with Ed’s performance and I’m impressed by what an amazing rapper he is! I think Drake is the best rapper of our generation and I stand by my convictions, but there is no way that I cannot recognize the talent that Ed Sheeran has for rapping, rhythm, looping beats, sentimental lyrics, and entertaining a crowd.
Check out my best pictures as you go and I hope you get to see Ed on tour this year too!!!
Ed was magical as he always is and he makes every fan feel like his friend!
Music Row Girl 