Live Review: Ed Sheeran at the 3Arena

It’s low hanging fruit these days to do a bit Ed-bashing. We can talk all we like about how mediocre his new album is (it is) or rail against the fact that he’s ruining music (he isn’t), but while we talk ourselves round in circles, he’s still selling out back-to-back arena shows and continually topping our album charts here in Ireland. No matter how much vitriol and castigation is thrown at the Suffolk singer in online articles, the packed out crowd at the 3Arena don’t seem to have realised yet that he’s the death of all that's good and holy about music ever.

How dare they!

Let’s all keep calm for a second and look past the ‘Divide’ caused by Ed's newest album. Like any good reviewer should, I enter the 3Arena with an open mind. I’m greeted to the sounds of Belfast-based supporting act Ryan McMullan, who whips up the ever-burgeoning crowd with a few tunes to kick things off. Huge props to the young musician who shows his appetite for success on the main stage. Anne- Marie follows and delights the audience with her string of hit singles, including long-time No. 1, ‘Rockabye’.
Then comes the main man himself onto the stage. Same recognisably dishevelled hair, same pleasant grin and same warm greeting to the Irish crowd he claims to love so well. As Ed launches straight into ‘Castles On The Hill’ and fails to do justice to one of the better songs from his third album, I’m acutely aware of the various gaps that he’s always having to bridge when doing any live performance.

Ed has to reconcile the fact that he’s an acoustic musician whose songs are better suited to a cosy basement bar, with the fact that he’s sold out the 3Arena. He also has to deal with the reality that he’s reached rock star status, but still sings and writes like he's determined to make everyone know that he’s Nice Guy Ed Sheeran. And he also has to negotiate trying to sing his lyrics to the best of his ability while the din of 5,000 people singing them back constantly threatens to drown him out...
Balls are juggled and occasionally dropped. When Ed is at his best – during the likes of ‘I See Fire’, ‘Barcelona’, ‘Don’t’ and set finisher ‘U Need Me’ – he’s exhilarating; but when he’s at his worst, he’s unbearably bland and dull. Fluctuating throughout, the singer never managing to grip you to the point where you can’t turn away.
And if you predicted that he’d do something absolutely cloying like bring out Beoga on stage to do a trad mash up of the original ‘Galway Girl’ with his own – you’d be right. The crowd at the front seem to enjoy it - as do they enjoy that other pseudo-Irish ballad ‘Nancy Mulligan’ - but those of us on the fringes aren’t as convinced.
Percussive guitar techniques, a bit of wizardry on the loop pedals, and a hugely impressively light show all do wonders for Ed (I’ll never not be impressed with the big budget spectacles that contemporary musicians can afford), but even after a 19-song show that incorporated most of his work so far, I’m still not sold.