![\"Ed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/a6d839332b73e367acc92f9aaaefc6f82b23c439.jpg\")
Camera IconEd Sheeran on the LED screen. Credit: Gary Ramage\/The West Australian<\/p>\nMusic superstar Ed Sheeran rocked out to tens of thousands of adoring Perth fans at Optus Stadium on Saturday night to launch the start of the Aussie leg of his Loop Tour.<\/p>\n
The famous red-head tricked his fans eagerly anticipating his arrival by appearing on a second stage hidden among the crowd about 8pm \u2014 a moving bridge emerged to get him back to an epic main stage.<\/p>\n
Sheeran launched his set by bursting into his hit 2011 song You Need Me, I Don\u2019t Need You.<\/p>\n
Sheeran kept singing as he crossed the bridge to a stage that featured a huge LED screen displaying incredible graphics matching the topics of his songs.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerth, how you feeling tonight,\u201d he greeted his screaming audience.<\/p>\n
Camera IconEd Sheeran on the LED screen. Credit: Gary Ramage\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so good to be back in Australia, thanks so much for coming down.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added how much he missed Perth and picked our city as the first stop Down Under because of how \u201cnuts\u201d his fans react and how they turn out \u201cen masse\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/79c793b3c53d020b2a3c8deedecd5d9f48eb202c-16x9-x239y0w4985h2804.jpg\")
Camera IconThe LED screen was a major feature at the gig. Credit: Gary Ramage\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
Sheeran then launched into one of his newer tracks, Sapphire, which had the crowd yelling out the chorus with colourful pyrotechnics shooting into the sky.<\/p>\n
Having a loose pedal on his live loop machine didn\u2019t stop the star and while it was fixed he told the story of the tune that kicked off his career at the age of 18, love song A Team.<\/p>\n
![\"Global](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/262779890ba77ebc62595024c5a6eab9636d753f.jpg\")
Camera IconGlobal superstar\u00a0Ed Sheeran on stage. Credit: Gary Ramage\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
Other hits to feature in his first act included Castle on a Hill, Shivers and Don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Sheeran then took the crowd an emotional rollercoaster, playing some of his most vulnerable songs about love, heartbreak and loss.<\/p>\n
He had the entire stadium in the palm of his hand as he belted out a range of his discography from the early 2000s to his eighth album Play released last year.<\/p>\n
The UK superstar professed his love for performing in Australia, and Perth gave all the love back dancing and singing to some of his iconic love songs like Thinking Out Loud and Perfect.<\/p>\n
Sheeran proved why he is one of the most talented and authentic live acts out there with his loop machine ensuring no show is a copy and paste.<\/p>\n
A touching part of the night included the moment he played several songs requested by fans earlier in the day through a QR code plastered on the big screen.<\/p>\n
American Town was a popular song request so Sheeran said he relearnt it in his dressing room before the show and asked his fans \u201cnot to judge me\u201d if he got the lyrics wrong.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t slip up at all and the crowd was delighted to hear the throwback from 2023.<\/p>\n
Sheeran didn\u2019t just take his fans on a musical journey but a personal one \u2014 filling his set with references to his life trying to make it as a successful musician in London at the age of 17 but getting turned away from every record label.<\/p>\n
Instead he began writing songs for other famous artists and to give Perth a taste he played a medley of some of the hits many people might not have known he wrote.<\/p>\n
Some of the songs he mashed up included Eastside by Halsey, 2002 by Anne Marie, One Direction\u2019s Little Things and Love Yourself by Justin Bieber.<\/p>\n
To wrap up the whirlwind of an evening, the father-of-two ended with songs Afterglow, Shape of You, Azizam and Bad Habits.<\/p>\n
Sheeran said he first visited Australia as a little boy and became obsessed with our country \u2014 on Saturday night he fell in love all over again.<\/p>\n
He is set to take to the stage again on Sunday night supported by BIIRD, Mia Wray and Vance Joy.<\/p>\n
The verdict<\/p>\n
5 out of 5 stars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Music superstar Ed Sheeran rocked out to tens of thousands of adoring Perth fans at Optus Stadium on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136,46,45],"class_list":["post-450395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-perth","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}