A little more than a year after catching Ed Sheeran at the 250 SRO capacity Mercury Lounge, here he is again at the 18,000 seater Prudential Center and with just an acoustic TV an LCD screen, a pedal loop and personality to be burn, Sheeran was, if anything, better.
I have never seen such a brave performance in my life. Putting the ED and the red head in Taylor Swift's RED tour, he bounds out on stage to tell the 18,000 girls that it was "My job to entertain you and your job to be entertained" and for the next 40 minutes did precisely. To be fair, I am sure a segment of the audience already owned his huge UK hit + but that alone doesn't explain his skill at gaining the Arena's interest and holding it with really just a guitar.
What helps is he makes his songs powerful singalongs and let's them build and build and build, whether turning Nina Simone's "Be My Husband" into a massive singalong, emphasizing where Dave Matthews and Eric Clapton might meet on "You Need Me, I Don't Need You", which interlopes some of "Layla" or tearing through his best song "Lego House", no child was left behind during his magicians act of a show, filling the Arena with sound all by himself.
Sheeran's songs still go on to long and he still is the weariest and unsexists of teenage heartthrobs but opening for Swift he is exactly what you want, a very enjoyable preparation for the main event performed with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of skill and pleasure. Ending with "The A Team" -a very odd singalong if ever there was one, he did the impossible: he was memorable. More than you can say for NEEDTOBREATH in 2011.
Grade: A