Season 2, Ep. 03

"X"

Ed Sheeran live you say? I say hooray. A simple but genius idea for a mother's day gift that spiralled into one of the finest weekends 'away'. Clearly by mother's day you understand we booked in May. And the concert was 3 days ago. Hashtag girl's gotta be prepared.

Ed. Boy do I love Ed's music. From day 1. I remember when I was under the impression that Rupert Grint, aka Ronald Weasly from Harry Potter had released a single when 'Lego House' came out. Lol. And then I became a fan. So when we heard that this little ginger genius is coming to New Zealand we couldn't resist. 

It was an all girls trip to one of the busiest and most visited cities of New Zealand. And my first time in Auckland. Auckland looks like a combination of 3 known big cities in my humble opinion. Athens, New York and Sydney. Have not visited Sydney yet but I will take up on my girlfriends' opinion about that. The main street, the harbour, the houses, the cafes and the super well dressed Aucklanders, it all left me with an excellent first impression. The weather very much helped, nice and warm, a sweet taste of pure summer. 

And now to the concert. First of all, a big thank you to the city for being so organised about this. Almost 100 free coach rides were available to take us to the venue and back once it was all finished. I mean, wow. Definitely saved us crowded, cramped queues to trains and standing still for an hour until we finally caught one. No. It was a smooth operation. 

When we arrived and sorted ourselves out regarding seats, drinks, quick toilet visit etc, we walked in half way through Passenger's performance as one of the two opening supporting acts. He was beautiful,just what you need when you first arrive at a concert, a calm solo acoustic musician to set the mood and sets us all in the right mind frame for the big Ed moment. Unfortunately as good as he was, I only know 'Let Her Go', which I bashed out singing along when he sang it with everyone else. Soon after he was done, Rudimental took on the stage and boy did they bring it all up a notch. Suddenly we're all in party mood, with their cheerful and catchy tunes, and here I am admitting that I had no idea I know so many songs of theirs. Yeah, I suck like that, I know songs but I never bother figuring out who they are by or titles etc. Anyway, Rudimental featured 4 main vocalists and they were all fab. Funny downside: half way through their set, the stadium had a massive power cut and everything went to silence! We waited until everything restarted and rebooted as fast as they could, but despite the blatant technical difficulty, no-one's mood was ruined or annoyed or whatever. Hashtag not the end of the world, hashtag don't want our money back.

Ed. As cheesy as he is, he is so the right kind of cheesy. First we got to see a footage of his steps in music, and how much he literally struggled to get to this point of singing live in front of 200k people audiences. And then he walked on stage. The first thing we all noticed is his All Blacks jersey. Cute and respectful. He starts singing, OH and by the way, his entire set was JUST him and his collection of guitars. He supported the entire show on his own, no other form of instrument support, no band, just a couple of backing singers, invisible to the naked eye-lol. But the graphics behind him made such a massive impact on the whole thing. Props to the graphic designers. Anyway, I'm losing my trail of thought, as soon as he finished his first song, he turned around to switch guitars and that's when everyone's hearts in the crowd melted. Not only was he wearing an All Blacks jersey but he was wearing no 11, aka Jonah Lomu's jersey. Hashtag footnote: for my non-Kiwi mates, Lomu was a rugby veteran, who changed the course of rugby as we know it as the youngest All Black in history and with a record of scores and tries. Sadly he passed away about a month ago at age 40 from kidney disease. Sadly. So yeah, Ed paid his massive respect and boy did every Kiwi appreciate this. He was on the news and everything. Bless.

This was Ed's final performance after 2.5 years of touring and boy did he follow up his promise to sing his heart out even if he ended up losing his voice the next morning. The entire stadium was lit up to everyone's phone torches and it looked magical. Funny how back in the day people used lighters ae. Torches are prettier. Favourite moment. 'Thinking Out Loud'. Of course. I was waiting for the chick from the video to pop on stage and do their little contemporary dance but I settled to just watching the video being played in the background. Pf, okay.

All in all, a fab experience, with fab people, fab weather and a fab concert. Thank you Ed. Thank you for being successful. Hashtag thinking out loud.

"I see fire"