Ed Sheeran in the rain in Christchurch. Image: Alex Casey<\/p>\n
Sheeran is so beloved across so many demographics that, upon acquiring a last minute ticket to his sold out Loop tour, I found out that my mum, who I thought had not ingested any new music since Shania Twain\u2019s 1997 album Come on Over, wanted me to record \u2018Perfect\u2019 for her. My 75 year-old father somehow had an extensive understanding of the Loop tour stage set-up. My friend\u2019s 12-year-old daughter wanted to go because she thought he might bring out Taylor Swift. Sheeran has all people of all stripes trapped in his Lego House, and I wanted in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even though, as Sheeran said himself, it was \u201cchucking down\u201d with rain, Christchurch punters of all ages still showed up in their Bunnings ponchos and umbrella hats, light-up glasses and Hunter gumboots. 2026 is the year of friction-maxxing after all \u2013 embracing inconveniences in everyday life to build resilience \u2013 and all 18,000 of us were officially committed to a huge night of Sheeran-maxxing. \u201cThank you so much for waiting in the rain up until now,\u201d Sheeran joked. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to know that New Zealand summer is the same as British summer. I feel at home\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Loop tour stage set-up. Image: Alex Casey<\/p>\n
Speaking of maxxing: the bloody stage. The largest screen build in New Zealand, Sheeran\u2019s Loop Tour stage has multiple iterations in different tour spots as it takes several days and about 300 people to put up and pack down. Periodically, a long retractable bridge would stretch out like ET\u2019s finger to a smaller stage in the middle of the crowd. Sheeran was largely a lone figure traversing this enormous set-up back and forth for most of the three-hour show, sometimes seeming dwarfed by it. \u201cThis stage is super wet and super slippy,\u201d he said at one point. \u201cIf do fall, be kind to me on TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aided by a complicated loop pedal situation that saw him build the layers of every song live without any backing tracks, Sheeran tore through big hits like \u2018Sapphire\u2019, \u2018Castle on the Hill\u2019 and \u2018A Team\u2019, the latter of which he talked about playing to endless empty pubs in London at the age of 18. When he first played it in New Zealand in 2012, he thought it was a one hit wonder and he would never come back. He shook off his dripping wet hair on the 10-storey tall screen. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m Chris Martin from Coldplay in the \u2018Yellow\u2019 video when he\u2019s soaking wet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ed Sheeran channeling Chris Martin form Coldplay. Image: Alex Casey.<\/p>\n
As the rain continued to pour (\u201cit\u2019s coming in sideways now\u201d the man next to me noted, hiding behind a plastic bag), there were some thrilling technical difficulties. After Sheeran dovetailed \u2018Don\u2019t\u2019\u2019 into a surprising mash-up with Blackstreet\u2019s \u2018No Diggity\u2019, the retractable bridge failed to retract. During the section where he played audience requests including deep cuts like \u2018Friends\u2019 and \u2018Drunk\u2019, the first of several of his guitars puttered out completely. \u201cI don\u2019t think guitars are supposed to be soaked in the rain like this,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever seen a puddle in my set list.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although the tour is billed around Sheeran\u2019s loop pedal skills, a highlight was when he brought out Irish folk band Beoga for \u2018Galway Girl\u2019 and \u2018Nancy Mulligan\u2019, the visuals onscreen showing Sheeran\u2019s disembodied head drifting over fields of Irish wildflowers and Claddagh rings. The buzzy Sheeran scenes didn\u2019t stop there. For \u2018Celestial\u2019 he zoomed past Jupiter through the solar system. For \u2018I See Fire\u2019 he appeared inside the eye of Sauron, as the elaborate pyrotechnics set-up belched out welcome flames around the arena (instinctively, many in the audiences lifted their hands to warm themselves up).\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the end of the show, Sheeran had only two guitars left that hadn\u2019t gone \u201ckaput\u201d in the rain, his earpiece was waterlogged and he had to stop to put a hoodie on under his jacket, putting both hoods up for the remainder of the show like a Sith Lord. In case there was any doubt of his work ethic, he squeezed in a medley of hit songs he had written for other people, including \u2018Love Yourself\u2019 for Justin Bieber and \u20182002\u2019 for Anne-Marie. He finished up with \u2018Shape of You\u2019 and \u2018Bad Habits\u2019, which the entire crowd jumped up and down for, not least to stay warm. New Zealand summer, eh?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Casey reviews Ed Sheeran\u2019s very rainy show at Christchurch\u2019s Apollo Projects Stadium. When Ed Sheeran sauntered through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4487,3681,12564,156,1063,111,139,69,1066],"class_list":{"0":"post-250500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-christchurch","9":"tag-cnz-review","10":"tag-ed-sheeran","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-live-music","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-pop-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}