Ed Sheeran – August 19th – Empower Field at Mile High

Photos by Ty Hyten

It was one of the most anticipated nights of the summer for my 10 year old daughter. We’d been out of town on Taylor Swift weekend and, while that was definitely traumatic, she took comfort in the fact that she was going to get to see Ed Sheeran at Mile High. What she didn’t know was that the wait to see him was going to be longer than she had originally anticipated.

Here’s her account of the show! Congrats Story on your first published concert review!

When I got to Mile High Stadium to see Ed Sheeran with one of my best friends and my Mom and Dad, I was so excited. I was expecting one of the best nights of my life, and I got that – but with a little let down too. We went in the gates, found our seats and Khalid was awesome but then it all stopped and everyone was sad. I get that the show had to be stopped because of lightning, but it was still kinda sad.

One of the coolest things about my Dad reviewing concerts is that sometimes he gets really good seats, and this time I got to sit in them for part of the show (I didn’t want to leave my friend all night). The view was incredible. While we were up front in these seats, believe it or not I LOST A TOOTH about 10 minutes before Ed came out (I lose teeth in the strangest places). When a one minute timer came on the massive screen over the stage, I was so happy and everyone started screaming – it was starting to get real. Then it was 10 seconds and everyone was screaming…3, 2, 1!

When he finally came on, I lost my mind. Suddenly I had so much energy even though it was 10:00. Then everyone was scream-singing. I don’t know if that’s a word but that’s what everyone was doing. It was crazy! If I could put audio on this it would look like, “SHE’S IN THE CLASS A-TEAM / STUCK IN HER DAYDREAM”.

The stage setup was amazing and it was so cool that it had a track on the outside so he could face any part of the stadium. It felt like he was singing it just to us and no one else whether we were up front in the good seats or back with my friend and her family. We were singing till we lost our voices and then, after he played “Photograph” my Dad took my friend I back down to the good seats and while we were on the I way I missed my favorite song “Perfect.” The rest of the night was completely incredible. I did not expect “Bad Habits” and “Shape of You” to be his last two songs either. All I can say is it was one of the best nights of my life and I got to go with one of my best friends!

Now, here’s my account of the show!

We walked into the stadium just in time to catch about a couple of songs from Khalid (an artist she was also very excited to see) before he paused the middle of “Coaster” and announced from the stage that they were kicking him off because there were storms moving toward the stadium. There was an audible groan from the rapidly filling stadium and we retreated to the concourse where we’d spend much of the next couple of hours – yes, you read that right, the next couple of hours.

While the storms largely stayed east of the stadium, there was some rain, and lightning was clearly visible from inside Mile High. Patience is a virtue they say, but in this case it ran thin at moments among the younger ones in our crew, and I can’t say I blame them. By the time Sheeran hit the stage at 9:55 the concert was supposed to be getting close to wrapping up.

What’s the saying? Sometimes good things come to those wait? Yep, that’s it. Well, I’m not sure that would have gone over too well with the 10 year old at 9:45, but by 10:00 as Sheeran and his band were running through the opening pairing of “Tides” and “BLOW” she looked at me and said “that was TOTALLY worth it.” I have to admit, I agreed with her. While I’m not the biggest fan of Ed Sheeran, we have a couple of his albums on vinyl and I respect his songwriting. What I wasn’t expecting was to have him be such a charismatic and engaging performer. For more than two hours, Sheeran ran around the stage and performed about 75 percent of the show solo.

How can one man entertain what was reported to be not only the largest crowd in Mile High Stadium history (85,233) but also the largest concert in the history of Colorado? Sheeran did it by employing a technique known as Live Looping to layer tracks on top of each other to created a very full sound that gives the illusion of a band. He was quick to point out early in the show, before he launched into “Shivers” that there were no backing tracks being used in the performance and gave a quick demonstration of how his loop station works. See below for a version of this demonstration from a London show.

I’ve seen artists using live looping like this before, but never on this scale and it was pretty mind-blowing to watch what he was doing as he dazzled the crowd with “The A Team” and “Castle on the Hill.”

While Sheeran was performing mostly solo, don’t be fooled that this show had some intimate acoustic coffee house vibe to it. Quite the opposite. The massive stage took up a large part of the center of the stadium and regularly exploded with pyrotechnics and fireworks that lit up the sky.

After the trio of “Eyes Closed,” “Give Me Love,” and “Boat” Sheeran welcomed his band back to the stage (or at least to their own little islands near the stage) and together they delivered “Overpass Graffiti,” a version of “Galway Girl” that included the dazzling Alicia Enstrom on Fiddle, and finally one of the most anticipated songs of the night “Thinking Out Loud.” In Sheeran’s own words “If you don’t know the words to this one, you are probably at the wrong concert.”

The final solo set of the night included “Sing,” “Perfect,” and “Bloodstream” and then Sheeran invited the band back out to close the show with “Afterglow” as the massive, circular screen that had hung above the stage descended to hide the singer from view. Despite the clock having ticked past midnight, the crowd was hanging on till the bitter end. After a very brief break that allowed him to change into a Broncos Jersey, Sheeran returned for a three song encore that featured “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You,” “Shape of You,” and “Bad Habits” and left the Mile High City buzzing about his stellar performance.