Ed Sheeran didn’t need a dramatic entrance. No countdown, no explosion, just a spotlight cutting across Go Media Stadium as he walked through the crowd, hands free, heading straight for the circular stage in the middle of it all. The air was warm and buzzing, the sun still hanging low, and the energy shifted the moment people realised it was actually him. No stage theatrics, just Ed walking in like it was any other gig. Then, without a word, he stepped up, gave a small nod, and launched into You Need Me, I Don’t Need You. It was immediate. Fast. No build-up, no soft intro, just go.
As the song closed, something started moving above the crowd, a bridge, slowly extending from the main stage. It hovered across the audience and docked with the central platform. Ed turned to the people below and called out, almost teasingly: “When it goes over you, are you alright, are you fine?” He walked across like it was nothing. The bridge would become a regular player throughout the night, sliding in and out as the set moved between stripped-back and stadium-sized.
Earlier in the evening, the crowd had filled steadily through the support acts. Vance Joy held his own with an easy, open set that coasted between big singalongs and quiet familiarity. By the time Ed appeared, the space was already full, not just with people, but with attention. Everyone was ready.
What followed was less of a straight concert and more of a shared unpacking, of memory, of loss, of things left unsaid. The structure didn’t follow a clean arc. Instead, songs and stories were offered like pages from a journal, not always in order, but always real.
Before the show, fans had been invited to text in requests. It wasn’t a gimmick, he actually played them. First came Little Bird, with a story that caught everyone off guard.
“I had a girlfriend in high school who wanted to be a vet,” he began. “She had a chicken that had been run over, and she said, ‘Let’s look after it.’ I’d just done loads of gigs in London, I was shattered. I said, ‘I want to go to bed.’ And when I woke up… the chicken had died. I felt dreadful. So I wrote this song.”
It was ridiculous, but weirdly touching. That’s the thread he kept pulling on all night, humour tangled with guilt, nostalgia framed by distance.
Sofa came next, a deep cut from 2008. “Fifteen years since I played this,” he said, scanning the crowd. “Whoever requested it, I hope you enjoy it.” Then Tenerife Sea, which didn’t need much of an intro. “This one gets used a lot for weddings,” he added, with a quiet shrug, fully aware of the emotional damage he was about to do.
Then came Supermarket Flowers. He didn’t need to say anything at all.
But he did speak before Eyes Closed, and the tone shifted completely.
“The last time I was in New Zealand, I was about to put out an album called Subtract,” he said. “It came out in May 2023. It was inspired by things that happened in 2022 — when my friend Jamal Edwards passed away. I wrote this song in between him passing and his funeral. If anyone’s lost someone in this stadium — which I’m sure everyone has — you do go into denial. I didn’t believe he had passed away. So I wrote this. This is called Eyes Closed… I hope you like it.”
The air in the stadium thinned. It’s hard to describe that kind of collective listening, no swaying, no whispering. Just stillness.
But it didn’t stay there for long. Photograph brought the crowd back into action, and Ed used it to orchestrate something new. “Don’t just turn on your torch. Turn on the flash. When I sing ‘I don’t need a camera’, take a photo, and all the flashes will go off.” After the crowds practice run he laughed and said. “Coldplay have bracelets. I have you.”
Then the stage exploded as Photograph began.
No one — not even Ed — seemed to know fireworks were going to hit at certain parts of the night. “First show, and none of us knew that big fireworks were going to happen,” he admitted. “But at least we will now for tomorrow.”
Later, as the show reached its introspective core, Ed paused again to talk about something most artists would’ve avoided.
“When you get sued, it takes a long time to get to court,” he said. “I got sued in 2015, and we didn’t go to court until 2023. The judge ordered that they could have anything of mine — laptops, phones, emails, voicenotes, photos, videos. On one hand, it’s intrusive. On the other, it’s nostalgic.”
He went quiet for a second.
“I turned on my old phone. The last text message was from Jamal. I read through all our messages, up to the first time we met. The next was from a family member I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. And then the next one… was me, mid-argument, with an ex. I was obviously reading it, thinking ‘f** this’, and turned my phone off.”* The crowd laughed. He grinned. “But eight years later… in hindsight… they actually had a point.”
Then came Old Phone, the song born from that moment. It was simple. Tender. Sharp in all the ways Ed Sheeran’s best songs are.
He moved on, but never really let go of that thread. Heaven, which made it onto his album thanks to a nudge from his wife Cherry — “I like to have 12 songs on an album. She said, ‘Why haven’t you put Heaven on it?’ So I did.” Then a burst of energy with Galway Girl and Nancy Mulligan, lifted by the band Beoga.
But one of the most memorable moments was the mashup. A reminder of just how many hits he’s written for other people, even if most of them don’t sound like him at all. Eastside, 2002, Cold Water, Little Things, Love Yourself — five songs, five artists, and one very quiet flex.
He finished with an encore of, Shape of You, Azizam and Bad Habits, and obviously lots of Fireworks.
For a show this sprawling, 30 songs, emotional gut-punches, chaotic tech, deep cuts and chart-toppers, it never felt bloated or overly slick. If anything, the imperfections made it better. Ed didn’t try to deliver a perfect tour debut. He let it be human, vulnerable, funny, and at times a bit weird.
If this is how the Loop Tour begins, the rest of the world’s in for something unexpectedly brilliant.
Ed Sheeran – Loop Tour Setlist
- You need me, I don’t need you
- Sapphire
- Castle on the Hill
- The A Team
- Shivers
- Don’t
- Eyes Closed
Fan Suggestions:
- Little Bird
- Sofa
- Tenerife Sea
- Supermarket Flowers
- Give Me Love
- Galway Girl (with Beoga)
- Nancy Mulligan (with Beoga)
- I Don’t Care (with Beoga)
- Old Phone (with Beoga)
- Heaven (with Beoga)
- Camera (with Beoga)
- Celestial (with Beoga)
- Photograph
- Eastside / 2002 / Cold Water / Little Things / Love Yourself (Medley of songs written by Ed)
- Thinking Out Loud
- Perfect
- I See Fire
- Symmetry
- Bloodstream
- Afterglow
Encore:
- Shape of You
- Azizam
- Bad Habits
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