A Peek Inside the Sheeran Juggernaut

Vendors raised the Sheeran flag (aka, t-shirts) outside the Greek. [photo by Paul Iorio]

Sheer Sheeran-mania came to Berkeley, California, last Friday night.

As around 8,500 fans packed into Ed Sheeran's sold-out show at the Greek Theater, thousands more gathered outside, climbing tall trees and steep hills to get a glimpse and to hear the sound spilling from the open-air arena.

Hardly a bald head in sight. Almost everyone was under 25, it seemed. And some were tweens who looked juiced up on Kool-Aid and Skittles. ("Don't get her too excited," one mother said to an older sibling of a youngster who was clearly over the moon for Sheeran.)

A guy with a mere acoustic guitar created all this excitement?! Who would've thought a new generation would settle on such an austere aesthetic?

After the countless musical inventions of the past fifty years -- hip hop, electronic dance music, grunge, reggae, jam, etc. - and all the inventions of the digital era - home recording technology, Auto-tune, etc. -- the latest generation still gathers around music created by one songwriter singing his songs with a guitar. The fundamental things apply/as time goes by, as the song says.

Of course, there is one element that does mark Sheeran's music as an unmistakably 21st century phenomenon: his fusion of rap and folk (and, yes, he is a thoroughly convincing rapper, as he amply demonstrated during the medley that began with "You Need Me, I Don't Need You").

After a terrific opening set by British synth-popsters Rixton, Sheeran took the stage and was loquacious, assured, stoking the fans, answering his critics.

"We got our first-ever complaint the other day," Sheeran said after the second song. "...They got in touch and said they felt they had been short-changed because I was playing to a backing track....Well, everything you hear tonight is live. Everything."

Huge cheer from the crowd.

Then he started into "Don't," the Rick Rubin-produced track from last year, one of the night's best, with a hypnotic riff snaking through his rapping.

And he did a surprisingly strong "I See Fire," from the 2013 movie "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," and it had everyone singing the chorus as if it were a vintage anthem. (Even in the hills above the theater, where sightlines were limited (and where, for the record, I heard the concert), people were singing every word of it.)

Elsewhere, "Thinking Out Loud" was like primo Tracy Chapman with a dash of Shawn Mullins; "Tenerife Sea" was almost Paul Simon-esque; and "Drunk" and "Photograph" sounded like a more interesting Dave Matthews.

But Sheeran saved the best for last.

He played a magical, minimal re-imagining of Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her" - it somehow almost seemed like a child's music-box version of it -- that, in its way, was nearly as great as the original.

"I can tell by the sound of your voices that you have not lost your voices yet," he said before the final encore. "And that's not acceptable!"

The fans, already loud, got louder.

For his finale, he performed - what else? - his biggest hit to date, his "Happy," "Sing," which he wrote with Pharrell Williams. The audience was so caught up in singing along to this insanely catchy tune that, in the end, they were the only voices heard.

And then it was lights out, and on to some of the world's largest stadiums.

After this gig, he went on to play Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri, opening for the Rolling Stones (or, as millennials would put it, headlining). It's an 80,000-ish-capacity venue that should get him in shape for his three sold-out shows coming up in a few weeks at London's Wembley Stadium, a 90-thousand seater, where he tops the bill.

Sheeran, last Friday night, projected on a video screen on the Greek stage. .(By the way, this was the sightline from the hills above the theater, where I heard the show.) [photo by Paul Iorio]

The hills were alive with the sound of music-lovers! Here was the scene outside the venue on Friday. [photo by Paul Iorio]