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| Ed Sheeran live |
It’s taken Ed Sheeran five years and an awful lot of hard work to achieve his overnight success, but it was clear from his performance at Rock City that he’s going to enjoy every last minute of his newfound stardom.
Performing in Nottingham for the umpteenth time – he recounted a story of sleeping at Nottingham Station after a gig to get the first train home in the morning – Sheeran clearly enjoys being in the city.
Fresh from his performance at the Radio 1 Teen Awards, the MOBO nominated singer appears to have firmly cemented his place as the voice of the student generation. It’s been a long time since I have seen a section of music fans identify so strongly with a performer and a huge section of the audience enthusiastically sang every word to every song he performed.
From the moment he bounded onto the stage with the uptempo Grade 8, the 22 year old managed to hold the audience in the palm of his hand. And, it was a pretty impressive achievement for one man, a guitar and a loop pedal to keep an entire crowd entertained for the best part of two hours with one album of material behind him.
Whilst he might be unbelievably popular right now, I’ll admit to being slightly perplexed as to why this is. His songs appear to speak to a student generation, although he is frequently guilty of some terrible lyrics. On Homeless, a frenzied crowd belted out “it's not a homeless life for me/ It's just I'm home less than I'd like to be” which must surely one of the worst couplets of 2011.
There’s also the question of his musical identity. On You Need Me, I Don’t Need You he talks of his ambition (“I won’t stop till my name’s in lights/at Stadium Heights with Damien Rice”) and, at times, positive comparisons with the Irish singer-songwriter can be made. Songs such as the pretty Wake Me Up and mammoth single The A Team suggest Sheeran could be a major singer/songwriter star although then, in a flash he transforms into a different performer altogether.
With an accumulation of rappers taking to the stage in the latter part of his show, Sheeran suddenly turned into a flame-haired urban act – a cross between Dappy and Newton Faulkner, if you like – a sound with which he does seem more comfortable.
Hearing Sheeran perform a terrible busker-esque version of Hallelujah for his encore put his career choice in stark focus. It strikes me that he can either take the Jeff Buckley route to acoustic guitar genius, or the Alexandra Burke approach to mainstream urban pop stardom. Looking at his adoring fans, the second options looks the most likely (but for my money, the wrong) option.
Ed Sheeran played at Rock City on Monday 10 October 2011.
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