Desi Sheerios get a shot in the arm

You know a gig’s going to be absolutely fantastic when the artist performing gets the audience grooving right from song one. That’s what 24-year-old two-time Grammy nominated British singer Edward Christopher Sheeran aka Ed Sheeran did when he flew into Mumbai for his maiden Indian performance on Sunday, March 1, courtesy Fly Music Festival. A massive number of ‘desi’ Sheerios (as his legions of fans are called) were all ready for a shot in the arm and queued outside Mahalaxmi Race Course hours before the event to witness the Suffolk-born singer-songwriter, who dropped his second album ‘x’ (pronounced “multiply”) that spawned hits like “Sing”, “Don’t” and “Thinking Out Loud” sometime last year, in concert.

Anyone who has watched a few videos of Ed’s concerts on YouTube would more or less be familiar with his set list, his routine and the kind of clothes he would wear on stage – usually an inexpensive plain t-shirt and a pair of jeans. But Ed didn’t fail to surprise the crowd. The ginger-haired singer, who rose to fame in 2011 with singles like “The A-Team”, “Lego House” and “Give Me Love” from his debut album ‘+’ (pronounced “plus”), popped on to the stage in a blue kurta and jeans. Once his signature acoustic guitar was plugged into his loop pedal, an uproarious crowd welcomed the singer as he started off with his foot-tapping “I’m A Mess”.

That done, Ed gave the crowd a heads-up on what the gig was going to be like. “There are going to be different points in the gig. Points where we’re all going to scream and shout, points where you’re going to have a choice whether you want to sing or chill,” Ed said.While those familiar with Ed and his music know all too well that he doesn’t tour with a backing band, the full extent of Ed’s credibility as a musician can only be understood when he’s performing live. That’s when he goes from producing noisy, adrenaline-pumping beats off his guitar and loop pedal in one moment to belting out a slow number, only picking the strings, after making the whole crowd go silent with his “universal shhhhhhhh” in the very next.

The multimillion-selling artist kept the audience hooked with catchy numbers like “Drunk”, the soft-on-the-strings “Lego House”, and then the more recent “One”, “Photograph” and “Thinking Out Loud”. All cell phone torches went on and a sea of lights filled the venue when Ed’s effortless honey-voice piped out “The A Team”. What followed were the songs “Nina”, “Take It Back”, “I See Fire” from ‘The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug’, “Kiss Me” from his own albums, and also covers of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”, all of which formed the bulk of his set list.To finish the two-hour-long concert, Ed played his ever-evolving, at-times-short-and-at-times-long “You Need Me I Don’t Need You” that got the whole crowd dancing and rapping, before going into the final song of the evening “Sing”. The crowd lapped up the performance and continued to scream out the chorus even after Sheeran signed-off, promising to come back to India soon.

By Kishore Eppalagudem