Ed Sheeran – Go Media Stadium: January 16, 2026 (13th Floor Concert Review)
Ed Sheeran launched his much anticipated Loop Tour right here in Aotearoa last night, selling out Go Media Stadium. Fellow ginger Carin Newbould was there to report back for The 13th Floor, alongside photographer Michael Jeong.
ED SHEERAN loves New Zealand. He told us so several times throughout the gig, was sure to mention his previous visits, and chose to launch his much anticipated Loop Tour here, with shows in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. True, there were a few ‘practice’ gigs in the UK before Christmas, but this was the first of the all singing, all looping, firework and laser spectacular fully fledged stadium shows in a tour currently scheduled to Play (the title of the new album) over 50 dates worldwide. “It’s the first time I’ve felt nervous in ages” he admitted, covering himself by saying early on “If mistakes happen, mistakes happen”. They didn’t. It was a slick run through of a massive 30 songs across almost three hours.
An early start on a Friday afternoon, in a venue accessible via the always congested motorway, when the trains aren’t running, wasn’t great planning. I’m sure the support acts BIIRD and Mia Wray will have larger crowds at subsequent shows, but when I finally managed to get there in time to see the third warm-up Vance Joy, much of the audience were still just dribbling in.
Vance Joy
Joy lived up to his name, though, with a good-natured and chirpy set supported by a five piece band, including sax and trumpet. Having previously supported Taylor Swift and Pink on world tours, Joy’s no novice at the role, but the Aussie singer-songwriter seemed genuinely chuffed to be supporting “the legend” Sheeran.
He performed a well-structured run through of songs from his three albums, including Divine Feelings and Lay It On Me. He threw in a spirited (if unlikely) cover of Kiss’ I Was Made For Lovin’ You before returning to the ukulele for his big hit Riptide, which the growing crowd knew well enough to join in an enthusiastic singalong. I hope Vance ditch-hops again for a solo gig soon, once he’s finished with the Sheeran support gigs across NZ and Australia.
Ed Sheeran
Bang on 8pm, Ed took to the stage – a phenomenal set up with NZ’s largest ever screen. The AV was pretty bloody impressive, as was the bridge which projected back and forth over the standing crowd to allow Sheeran to access a smaller pedestal stage further down the arena. Taking credit for it as an idea hatched a couple of years back, Ed trip-trapped across it several times through the evening, Billy Goats Gruff styley, asking the audience whether they were OK with it launching over their heads. “I’m glad the bridge worked!” he said, making us wonder whether the hydraulics had been less reliable in rehearsal. It would have been a messy and nasty start to the tour had there been an audience squishing incident.
The intro was pre-recorded, showing Sheeran’s back story – pictures of him growing up, tales of gigging in pubs with no-one interested, through to the phenomenal stats of having played to over 20 million punters worldwide over the last 15 years. It’s obvious he enjoys live performance, as he’s pretty much continually on tour. This one is different, though – Ed was keen to mention that every element is live (in contrast to David Byrne’s show earlier this week, maybe?) and explaining how the eponymous “Loop” works. For example, after informing that the pedal has 6 channels, Ed reckoned that the best song to demonstrate was Shivers, which was built up via a long, looped intro. Not everything was built up, though – by contrast, The A-Team was as poignant as ever and delivered beautifully, simply and acoustically.
Dressed in a black tour T-shirt and trousers, we were treated to a good view of Sheeran’s colourful tattoos as he swapped between various guitars throughout the night. He interspersed his musical offerings with plenty of anecdotes and chat, providing back stories and insights into his songwriting process. Ed told us that he’s released about 250 songs, but actively performs only about 30.
On the previous Mathematics tour, he played the big hits, but for the Loop Tour Sheeran wanted to play “other songs that people like”. He acknowledged that he’s avoided playing some songs because they can be “painful to play – they’re real songs about real people” but recognises that they mean a lot to fans: in a “death of the author” interpretation, Ed commented that they’re “not my story, but your story.” Supermarket Flowers is apparently popular for funerals, with Perfect and Thinking Out Loud well known as wedding songs. All three were performed, along with Little Bird, Tenerife Sea and Give Me Love, having been voted through for inclusion by texts submitted by punters earlier in the evening. Sheeran commented that Sofa, written back in 2008, was last played on the + (Plus) tour 15 years ago.
After fulfilling the requests segment of the evening, Ed was joined by Beoga, a five piece Irish band including accordion, mandolin and fiddle. Starting with Galway Girl, they provided backing for a number of songs including Heaven, from the new album Play. Sheeran explained that his preference is for 12 tracks on an album, but that this song was included at the request of his wife Cherry, bumping it up to 13. It’s a nice enough number, with prominent violin, but by this point a little more energy was needed.
Ed achieved this by getting the audience to use their flashes to take pictures during Camera, instead of lighting up torches on their phones. It created a magical twinkly effect around the arena. “Coldplay have bracelets – I have you!” Sheeran joked. Not that there was a lack of tech, bells and whistles at this stadium gig. As well as the mega-screen, with excellent visuals, lasers and fireworks were prominent throughout the night. There were plenty of fire plumes too, in standout offering Bloodstream as well as (obviously) for I See Fire, written here in NZ for his mate Peter Jackson and with a first verse sung acapella, without looping or any of his very many guitars. Was crossing the bridge again in Photograph, with the melancholy lyric “wait for me to come home”, a tribute to Bilbo “going on an adventure”?
There was a swathe of sad songs before the pace picked up with a medley of hits Sheeran had written for other people – playing a “mash-up” which included One Direction’s Little Things and Justin Bieber’s chart topper Love Yourself. We were instructed to sing along and lustily finish with the original lyric (F*** Yourself), which Sheeran then said he immediately regretted after noticing 5 year old kids in the audience. They were part of a really wide demographic, from toddlers through to Gold Card couples. Even the police in attendance were dancing along. It was a well-mannered, well-received gig.
Symmetry (another song from Play), picked up the pace, but the encore was the highest energy element of the show – impressive, after such a long set. Everyone was on their feet for Shape of You, recent hit Azizam (which was treated to an interesting fusion of the original Indian references with a surprising reggae twist) and a fabulous culmination to the night, Bad Habits, with gothic visuals and impressive fireworks. “I’m excited to come back tomorrow”, Sheeran said. Ticketholders for Auckland’s second gig – as well as those going along to Wellington and Christchurch – should be excited too. Ed left us with the Afterglow of a show that was sheer class.
Carin Newbould
Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Michael Jeong
Ed Sheeran:
Vance Joy:
Mia Wray:
BIIRD:
Ed Sheeran Setlist
- You Need Me, I Don’t Need You
- Sapphire
- Castle on the Hill
- The A Team
- Shivers
- Don’t
- Eyes Closed
- Little Bird
- Sofa
- Tenerife Sea
- Supermarket Flowers
- Give Me Love
- Galway Girl (accompanied by Beoga)
- Nancy Mulligan (accompanied by Beoga)
- Beautiful People/I Don’t Care (accompanied by Beoga) (originally released with Justin Bieber)
- Old Phone (accompanied by Beoga)
- Heaven (accompanied by Beoga)
- Camera (accompanied by Beoga)
- Celestial (accompanied by Beoga)
- Photograph
- Medley/ Mash-up: Eastside (hit for Benny Blanco, Halsey and Khalid)/.2002 (hit for Anne-Marie)/Cold Water (hit for Major Lazer)/Little Things (hit for One Direction)/Love Yourself (hit for Justin Bieber)
- Thinking Out Loud
- Perfect
- I See Fire
- Symmetry
- Bloodstream
- Afterglow
Encore
- Shape of You
- Azizam
- Bad Habits
Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour continues at Go Media Stadium, Auckland on Saturday 17th January, Sky Stadium, Wellington on Wednesday 21st January and Apollo Projects Stadium, Christchurch on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th January. Click here for tickets.
