A circular centre stage that rotates, with a 360-degree screen overhead, plus beams of fire shooting out of its edges – Ed Sheeran's Dubai concert is as dazzling (and dizzying) as it gets.
About 30,000 attended The Sevens Stadium on Friday evening – throngs of fans from a wide demographic, enamoured by the singer's hit-making virtuosity.
And he did not disappoint. From his contagious energy to the theatrics of the production, Sheeran has seemingly perfected the formula of his Mathematics world tour. He is in Dubai for two nights to show it off, accompanied by opening act Calum Scott, who proved that he's more than just a mere opener. For many in the audience, the entire night was a two-for-one concert.
With his soaring vocals, Scott definitely warmed up the crowd, who sang along to his power ballad You Are The Reason and his defining cover of Dancing On My Own.
The cosiness intensified in the open-air stadium when the British singer became visibly emotional at one point, saying “I've never been more nervous in my life” to a swooning crowd.
From Scott's set, you'd already be made aware of the quality of the production. The sound system, for example, is audibly top-notch – and as it should be, for a major concert at a vast open-air venue, one without the acoustics advantage of a closed hall. Also, it's Sheeran, who is by all accounts a true-blue musician first before anything else, and he wouldn't have allowed a clunky set-up.
Immediately, in his first of 26 songs, Tides, the British singer-songwriter's passion for live performance is palpable. Donning a guitar and running around the circular stage, Sheeran's energy fired up the audience, while literal flames caught people a bit off guard when they started flaring by the second song Blow.
The two-and-a-half-hour set list is a good collection of his discography. A few songs come from his latest album Subtract, while many are lifted from his earlier records. When he played The A Team, Sheeran was candid in explaining how it was the song that ultimately launched his career.
Sheeran's charm on stage is also thanks to his signature live looping. Instead of a band, he creates all of the sounds on stage, deftly layering them on top of each of other using a looper. This is why even when there seems to be a lot going on, with the rotating platform and the overhead screen, the stage is still aptly bare, making the audience focus on him.
He used the pedal system in most of the songs, but there were also tracks that needed the support of other live instrumentalists, such as during Beautiful People, I Don't Care and Galway Girl, where he invited a violinist to join him on stage.
Sheeran's career is punctuated with many chart-toppers, and he knows it. Before singing his 2014 hit Thinking Out Loud, for instance, he pre-empted people's urge to sing along. And people did sing along, also in the case of Perfect (2017), Photograph (2014) and Love Yourself (2015), which he wrote for fellow pop artist Justin Bieber.
The singer broke away from his set list to perform a surprise number, saying how he “really likes the atmosphere” and felt the song needed to be performed, Tenerife Sea, part of his Multiply album in 2014.
Sheeran wrapped up with a few more of his chart-topping songs – to audiences who didn't mind standing for over three hours, and still, with full energy, singing along Shape of You and Bad Habits as the concert came to a close. Of course, a small fireworks display had to conclude the evening.
