Ed Sheeran's second album, stylized as X but pronounced Multiplywill celebrate its official 10th anniversary in a few weeks, on June 21st. But for the record that changed his life, largely cementing his place in the pop ecosystem with “Thinking Out Loud” and “Photograph,” the singer-songwriter started the celebration early with a special performance at Brooklyn's Barclays Center on Wednesday afternoon.
Sheeran, never one to take himself too seriously, spent the hours leading up to the show riding bikes around New York with members of Laundry Day, the New York band whose recent viral explosion took them to number one at the concert.
It was a simple way to pass the time before treating an arena full of fans to his first live shows X deep cuts 'Shirtsleeves' and the mournful 'Even My Dad Does Sometimes'.
During the performance, Sheeran performed the entire album of the decade. This meant that for the first time since 2015, he revisited his catalog of 'Afire Love', as well as 'Runaway', 'The Man' and 'English Rose', which was originally released only on Wembley edition of the album. The setlist also included “Take It Back,” which was last performed in 2016, and a new cover of “Nina,” which Sheeran hasn't performed since 2014.
Sheeran also included his contribution to The fault in our stars soundtrack, “All of the Stars,” along with covers of Rudimental's “Lay it All on Me” and Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah.” Before the show, the musician spent an hour and a half re-learning his old songs on Instagram Live.
“I'm more calculated than people think,” Sheeran said Rolling rock in 2014, just weeks before the album's release. “When I said I wanted to play Madison Square Garden, a lot of people said I was crazy. And I made sure to do it. And when I said I wanted to sell 4 million albums and we were stuck at 2.5 million, I went to the States and went on Taylor Swift's tour and made sure I did it.”
She added: “Sometimes I feel like this isn't my life at all, that I'm just living someone else's life vicariously. I know that at some point, my career will not take the same trajectory it has now. But until I have kids, I can always say, “Look, I met this person and I partied with this person. And I had a bad time.”
But when Rolling rock met Sheeran — now a husband and father — last year as he released the latest album in his math series (2011 Plus, of 2014 Multiplyof 2017 divideand 2023 Remove), had taken a new step creatively. “Who's to say at what point creativity stops,” he said, explaining the trove of songs he's built over the past decade, “and you can't write any more songs? At least there is enough volume.”
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ed-sheeran-x-anniversary-concert-brooklyn-1235026330/