[Review] Ed Sheeran – Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON – Sept. 18th, 2014

(with opener Rudimental)

Ed Sheeran's first show at the Air Canada Centre and it was SOLD OUT! Not at all surprising though. One man, many guitar changes (including a rare appearance of his electric guitar), nearly two hours of totally captivating music = one bad ass equation. Seems only fitting since his first studio album + was called “Plus” and his second album X is called “Multiply”.

Although he began recording his music independently back in 2005, his career exploded when his first studio album came out 3 short years ago in Sept. 2011. By the end of 2012 he was already a headliner.

Not every musician needs to make a concert a huge spectacle of a production. Raw and amazing talent is more than enough to make the experience compelling. Ed Sheeran can seamlessly put together vocal harmonies and banging rhythms, moving effortlessly from on-your-feet dance anthems to soft heartfelt tunes to lightening fast rap lyrics.

An unassuming, dressed down, down to earth human being just strolls up to the microphones, straps on a guitar and gets you dancing and singing at the top of your lungs until you lose your voice. He was on fire...at one point literally...well, not physically. No harm came to him while his projected images were on fire though for his song “I See Fire”. His set had the crowd singing along so loudly the sound was all-encompassing and overwhelmingly beautiful. When Ed decided to slow things down, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop in this massive arena.

His 18-song setlist consisted of:

I'm A Mess

Lego House

Don't - with a little Blackstreet “No Diggity” thrown in

Drunk

Take It Back

One

Bloodstream

Tenerife Sea

Runaway - with a little Backstreet Boys “Everybody”

Kiss Me

Nina

Afire Love

Thinking Out Loud

Give Me Love

I See Fire

Encore:

You Need Me, I Don't Need You

The A-Team

Sing

[Video] Ed Sheeran - Give Me Love (via hui chen)

The opener, Rudimental, is a band also from the UK. Very good vocally but musically I was a bit lost. I couldn't follow the beat and it seemed like a jumble of musical styles. Instrumentally the bass was way too overpowering so I couldn't really hear the rest of the music besides the drums. It's as if they're trying too hard to put too many elements together to try to be original but it just seemed too muddled. Some people loved it and also sang along but I didn't get it. I did love the vocals though.

[Video] Promo video for Rudimental

[Photo Gallery] Ed Sheeran and Rudimental