On August 25th, Ed Sheeran held the first night of his Georgia stop in the Duluth Infinite Energy Center. Joining him on the tour was James Blunt, singer of 2004’s hit “You’re Beautiful,” as his opening act. Before Sheeran entered the stage, it was cleared of all instruments, and a loop pedal (a recording device) was brought to center stage with a trail of guitars lined up behind him.

The crowd roared as Sheeran opened with “Castle On The Hill,” a single from his latest album, Divide. The following songs were difficult to decipher because he spent a minute recording on the loop pedal, which brought a unique asset to the concert. “[He] used his guitar to make the drum beat and different guitar patterns, so I think that [took] a great deal of talent to do all that by [himself],” junior Morgan Ivester said. “Eraser,” the opening song off of Divide, which one might think is “just a rap song,” is actually very deep. He then played one of his first singles off his first album, Plus.

“Sing as loud as you can. You won’t see the person next to you ever again!” he shouted as we danced to “Don’t.” Sheeran always hyped up the crowd before a fun song came along. He dedicated “Thinking Out Loud” to some friends back home because it was their “date night.” Many songs that Sheeran writes are very intimate, and it was amazing to see everyone live in the moment. “He has a lot of nostalgic songs that I think a lot of people resonated with because the lyrics are so personal because he writes all his own lyrics,” Ivester said. Songs were played from all three albums, and the mix of the three was very nice.