Ed Sheeran opens LOOP Tour, hints at break to do 'the dad thing'

GLENDALE, AZ – On the opening night of the U.S. leg of Ed Sheeran’s LOOP Tour, the singer already had a temporary goodbye in mind.

Toward the end of the show, Sheeran casually mentioned that fans might not see him for a while after this tour. “I’m going to take some time off and do the dad thing,” Sheeran told the tens of thousands filling State Farm Arena outside Phoenix.

Take note, Sheeran enthusiasts.

The LOOP Tour, in support of his latest album, "Play," kicked off in January in New Zealand, Australia and South America. On Saturday, June 13, Sheeran returned to North America to launch a nearly five-month run.

This is the second stadium outing for the genial ginger musician, and while a bit less grandiose than his three-year The Mathematics Tour, the LOOP Tour still boasts an imposing production with a stately curved screen, multihued lasers, creative video imagery, pyro and an intermittently extended bridge.

Also unlike The Mathematics Tour, Sheeran was mostly unaccompanied by other musicians, with the exception of Irish folk band Beoga on a few tracks, including the eternally contagious “Galway Girl.”

Ed Sheeran can make even a stadium feel intimate

A stadium stage can be a lonely island for a solo star armed with only a guitar, keyboard and looping pedals, but Sheeran, 35, creates a tsunami of sound. He also excels at creating an intimate environment, even in a sprawling sports palace that often sounded like an echo chamber.

Sheeran’s opening “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You” overflowed with chaotic energy and a hyperactive video of spinning Sheerans. But the messy sound rendered his singing indecipherable, a problem that persisted throughout the two-hour, 45-minute performance.

At least the crowd could understand Sheeran’s frequent chatting. It would have been a shame to have missed out on his amiable storytelling, whether paying tribute to his late friend with the heart-rattling “Eyes Closed” or explaining why he doesn’t love playing “Supermarket Flowers” (though he did, to tender effect).

Clad in his own tour T-shirt and baggy black pants and sporting a light beard and close-cut hair now missing its mussed quality, Sheeran bounced between the main stage and a circular B-stage where he looked most content, especially when brandishing his acoustic for those sentimental soulmates, “Thinking Out Loud” and “Perfect.”

Ed Sheeran wants to engage with fans on the LOOP Tour

Sheeran works hard to interact with the crowd: In a very Coldplay moment, he urged fans to clap and jump during “Celestial,” and, for the sweet “Camera,” to snap a flash-enabled keepsake image of the stadium dotted with blinking lights.

Even given the wonky sound, Sheeran’s voice never wavered. His textured tone dipped high and low on “Supermarket Flowers”; he layered his vocals for a symphony of harmony on “Tenerife Sea”; and his sardonic delivery of “I Don’t Care” locked into the swaying beat. (Songmate Justin Bieber floated around the video screen behind Sheeran in costumes of both animals and … corn.)

Sheeran’s trademark looping process – for which this tour is named – was integrated into nearly every song. He banged the hollow body of his guitar to create the backbeat for “I’m a Mess,” while his stacked chords sounded like a swarm of insects at the start of “Castle on the Hill.”

This is one reason Ed Sheeran is so successful

The video that opened Sheeran’s show was in many ways a standard overview natural for an artist in the 15^th year of his career. But Sheeran’s voiceover noted how he started learning his craft playing in pubs for a handful of uninterested people and improving his musicianship along his way through clubs, theaters, arenas and stadiums.

It was a reminder that not only has Sheeran long paid his dues, but he’s also the increasingly rare musician who developed into a performer one step at a time, a process that keeps him humble and is reflected in the gratitude he oozes from the stage.

Sheeran took every lesson to heart, and the results continue to pay dividends.