Ed Sheeran Gets Loud Cheer For Gillette Stadium Return

FOXBOROUGH, MA — The grand finale for concert season at Gillette Stadium did end with a boom or a bang, but the quietest performance in the loudest way possible.

Such a contradiction is appropriate for Ed Sheeran, who is everything a stadium act should be but isn’t. Sure he can pack a stadium, but he doesn’t have an elaborate production like other shows do. Some blinking lights and a pretty background is going to be the most high-tech his shows are going to be. Firework enthusiasts and complex stage designers need not apply, all Sheeran needs his guitar and a few pedals to loop some rifts.

Coming in at an hour and 48 minutes, Sheeran, who was headlining his second show in Foxborough and playing this third overall, performed 17 songs, which included a couple of mashups, but it was still a smaller set than one would expect for a stadium show. Part of the reason may have been the fact that he loves to talk, sometimes a bit too much. At least three times he mentioned that Gillette Stadium was his first American stadium show, he joked about how the fans remind him that he’s quite boring when he sees shows, and he even took a moment to mention the 2 percent of people at the show that are not happy to be there (boyfriends who didn’t want to go and super dads watching out for their kids).

But when he wasn’t babbling on, Sheeran was doing what he does best and that’s create an intimate performance in a building where that shouldn’t be possible. From the start, Sheeran bounced from “Castle on the Hill,” which was more in vain with his signature sound, to the rap verses of “Eraser” and back to his early sound with “The A-Team.” He even took, "Bloodstream," his drum and bass collaboration with Rudimental, and worked it to be an acoustic dance tune.

Going only with a guitar, Sheeran avoided sounding monotonous but was flirting with it about 10 songs in. That's when he went electric for the only time Friday night, switching it up for "Thinking Out Loud." That kicked off the sing-along portion of the evening, with "Photograph," "Perfect," "Nancy Mulligan," and "Sing."

Sheeran also wasn't hesitant to play some lesser known tracks, playing what he called his favorite song to play live, "Tenerife Sea."

Anne-Marie and Snow Patrol were the opening acts.

Photos courtesy of Gillette Stadium / David Silverman.