A day later, Ed Sheeran stages a special show at Miller Park
Maybe it wasn’t “Brewers win a World Series game at Miller Park” fantastic. But it was still pretty fantastic.
Ed Sheeran performed for a soldout crowd of around 40,000 people at Miller Park Wednesday — a day later than planned. With the Brewers competing in the National League Championship Series until their seasonending loss Saturday, the concert’s setup had to be delayed, and the show was pushed back 24 hours.
There were a lot of irritated fans on social media, but nothing but good vibes at the show itself, led by perhaps the most affable, down-to-earth showman capable of filling stadiums. (Sheeran also apologized up front for the hassles, but looking over the beaming crowd, there seemed to be no hard feelings.)
What Sheeran offered was something special, a stadium show unlike anything Miller Park has had before. He performed all by himself for an hour and forty-five minutes. There were looping effects to fill out the sound, a large video display, but, still, he was all alone on that stage.
The profit margins must be insane, but the pressure must be, too. Yet if Sheeran was stressed, he didn’t show it.
With layers of rhythmic beats on his acoustic guitar, tight strums and wordless vocals, Sheeran created quite the wall of sound for “Bloodstream” with those looping pedals.
But for an early hit like “The A Team,” Sheeran refrained from using any effects at all, opting simply to sing and play his guitar. And in that moment, Miller Park came as close to resembling a hushed theater as it’s ever been. The only giveaway was the echo of Sheeran’s voice bouncing off the ballpark’s roof and walls.
He achieved this stunning stadiumwide silence multiple times Wednesday, including for deeper cut “Tenerife Sea,” during which the crowd largely honored Sheeran’s request for quiet until near the end, when his piercing falsetto triggered a wave of screams.
At about the 65-minute mark, Sheeran proclaimed we’d reached the singalong portion of the show, and presented three of his biggest hits back to back: “Thinking Out Loud,” “Photograph” and “Perfect.”
But these live renditions were gentler and more sparse than their ubiquitous radio counterparts — and infinitely more powerful.
For “Thinking Out Loud,” Sheeran just strummed an electric guitar, letting the sweetness of the words and warmth of the melody carry the song.
On “Photograph,” he put his looping skills on full display, chiming in with lush vocals for the final chorus over his man-made symphony of angelic falsetto cries and pretty guitar plucks.
Then for “Perfect,” at Sheeran’s suggestion, practically every smartphone light in the stadium was illuminated, creating a more radiant light display than anything conjured up onstage.
Sheeran, of course, saved his biggest hit for the encore: “Shape of You,” the most streamed song of all time. And for the occasion, he sported a Christian Yelich jersey.
And like the superstar Brewer whose name was emblazoned on his back, Sheeran in Miller Park proved to be a true MVP.