‘I can’t believe he’s really here,’ was the prevailing sentiment at British pop music icon Ed Sheeran’s first ever concert in Chennai. Sheeran’s two-hour concert at the YMCA Grounds in Nandanam, on February 5, saw some of his earliest songs like the haunting ‘A Team’, originally performed for disinterested audiences at London pubs, to fan favourites like ‘Perfect’ and ‘Tenerife Sea’. And before ending the night’s event, Sheeran suddenly slipped into Tamil while welcoming Oscar-winning music director AR Rahman on stage for a surprise collaboration.
The Chennai concert is a part of Sheeran’s ongoing +–=÷× Tour (Mathematics Tour) that mainly draws from his biggest hits across five of his albums: + (Plus) – (Subtract) = (Equal) ÷ (Divide) and Cross (x). Sheeran also released the +–=÷× Tour Collection album in 2024, bringing together studio versions of his most loved songs and exclusive memos from the singer hidden in the CD and vinyl releases. The +–=÷× Tour kicked off back in 2022 in Ireland and will conclude later this year in Germany.
On his Chennai leg of the concert, Sheeran opened with reminiscencing about his pre-celebrity days trying to get customers at various pubs in London interested in a song he considered deeply special—‘A Team’. The song speaks about a lonely young woman’s drug dependency and sex work. Laughingly referring to himself from that time as a “slightly overweight ginger” (slang for red- haired person), Sheeran added that the A Team’s trajectory from being ignored at open mic sets in pubs to the status of chartopper in multiple countries, as “passport that has taken me all around the world.”
Chennai concert goers also witnessed Sheeran’s use of his signature loop pedals—a complicated contraption that allows him to sing and play music live, record both on stage, and loop it back into his live performance instead of a band and chorus needing to back him up.
An audience member at the concert, Troy, told TNM, “I was blown away when I first watched him use the loop station at his Mumbai concert seven to eight years ago.” Troy said the experience encouraged him to give up his job to take up music full time. “I’m a loop artist as well now because of Ed Sheeran. This concert was a magical experience,” he added.
‘I See Fire’ originally performed for director Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2011) was a thrilling experience for any fan of beloved fantasy writer JRR Tolkien. The Desolation of Smaug was part of a three-part screen adaptation of his book The Hobbit—a prequel to his Lord of the Rings trilogy, which has also been successfully adapted for screen. As giant screens spat fiery colours behind Sheeran’s darkened stage in Chennai, it wasn’t too hard to imagine the terrifying dragon the song references.
Sheeran performed rap numbers like ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’ to ‘Castle on the Hill’, ‘Photograph’, ‘Lego House’, ‘Perfect’ and ‘Love Yourself’ that audiences sang along too. Soft numbers like ‘Tenerife Sea’ and ‘Afterglow’ had many delighted.
Just ahead of his closing track, Sheeran switched from singing another fan favourite ‘Shape of You’ to the chorus of the Tamil song ‘Urvasi, Urvasi’ from the 1994 Kollywood film Kadhalan. While surprised audiences took a few minutes to grasp what was happening, Rahman, who is the music director of Kadhalan, joined Sheeran on stage to perform a remix of ‘Shape of You’ and ‘Urvasi, Urvasi’.
“You don’t really get to see performances like this in Chennai. It’s really great that he came here and he gets to explore Chennai too,” said Sangamitra, an 18-year-old fan for whom watching Sheeran perform ‘Photograph’ was a “deeply personal experience.”
Jytsona, who described herself as an “absolutely amateur ukulele player”, told TNM it was a “surreal experience” to sing along with Sheeran, his songs that she’s learned to play so far. “This is the first concert I’ve been to by a big artist. I hadn't imagined that he would sound exactly the same as does on records even in a live experience,” she added excitedly.
The concert was opened by well-known Canadian-Indian playback singer Jonita Gandhi who performed, among other songs, ‘Arabic Kuthu’ which she originally performed for the Vijay-starrer Beast (2022).
Sheeran was in Chennai after his performances in Pune on January 30 and Hyderabad on February 2. The +–=÷× Tour is now headed to Bengaluru (February 8 and 9), Shillong (February 12), and New Delhi (February 15).
Tickets can be booked on BookMyShow and Sheeran’s official website.