Unlike his other recent Detroit visits, Ed Sheeran’s Ford Field show Saturday, Aug. 29, featured no big surprises. No Eminem cameos, no karaoke pop-ins.
Rather, a packed house at the Lions’ den got a straightforward shot of the English singer-songwriter and his stock-in-trade: acoustic pop-folk that manages to go anthemic as it’s delivered with a wide-grinning, everyman appeal.
Saturday’s stop came two-thirds of the way through his yearlong Loop Tour, and while the outing is ostensibly in support of his album “Play,” that 2025 release ultimately had a bit role in a nearly three-hour affair that drew heavily from the rest of his hit catalog.
The tour takes its name from Sheeran's signature live technique, which finds him deploying digital loop pedals
to create and layer sounds in real time as he accompanies himself. He outlined the process early in a chatty show that found him frequently rhapsodizing about Detroit.
“I know you feel like artists say that all the time, but I really mean it,” he assured the crowd during one of his many vows of affection for the city. After all, “when you’re in England, you grow up singing a lot of Detroit,” he said — echoing remarks he made at Ford Field in 2023 just before Eminem brought down the house with an unannounced appearance.
“I love this place. I love this city. I love this state. I was here a couple of weeks ago just for fun,” Sheeran said, alluding to the Aug. 20 stopover that found him at the Sakazuki sushi bar downtown, where he joined a fan for an impromptu karaoke performance of “Thinking Out Loud.”
Sheeran’s one-man show can occasionally bring the punch of a small army, as it did Saturday night on numbers such as “Give Me Love,” “I’m a Mess” and the pyro-packed showpiece “Bloodstream.” Elsewhere, he devotes his pleasant tenor to harmonizing with himself, as he did with the stacked vocals of “Tenerife Sea.”
Fans’ mobile phones created a galaxy of lights for the emotional earnestness of “The A Team” and “Perfect,” while “Castle on the Hill,” “Eyes Closed” and “Thinking Out Loud” brought fetching melodies to go with the hushed moments of “Wake Me Up” and “Photograph” and periodic frisky bits like “Don’t.”
The Loop Tour is designed with a main stage — backdropped by a massive video screen — with a small satellite stage at midfield, and Sheeran split his time between the two, sauntering across a 40-yard-long telescoping bridge that connected them when needed.
The Irish folk ensemble Beoga, his 2016 collaborators on the tunes “Galway Girl” and “Nancy Mulligan,” were part of a lively, fiddle-steeped stretch midway through that escalated the energy across the stadium. It was enough to make you ponder the potential benefit that could come from a full band tour by Sheeran at some point.
Before he hit the stage in a customized Lions jersey to kick off a three-song encore with “Shape of You,” Sheeran alerted the crowd that he intends to “pump the brakes” on touring after this current run. So it might be a while before fans see him again at Ford Field, where his career history stretches back to 2013 as an opener for Taylor Swift, well before he was the 35-year-old father of two young kids he is now.
Danish band Lukas Graham (“7 Years,” “Mama Said”) was part of an opening bill that included likable English singer-songwriter Myles Smith, whose 50-minute set was capped by his galloping 2024 breakout hit, “Stargazing.”
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ed Sheeran firmly in the loop at Ford Field as world tour hits Detroit
