2023-04-16 21:57:46
It’s not often that you see an artist like Ed Sheeran in such an intimate setting and in front of an intimate audience like that of the Fabrique in Milan. In fact, it’s nearly impossible. But that’s what happened tonight on the occasion of the show case for the presentation of the new album “-” (Subtract), the latest in his ten-year era of “mathematical” albums, expected on May 5th. An album that returns to Ed’s songwriting roots and written in a context of personal pain but also of great hope. The British singer-songwriter, global superstar with over 43 million followers and winner of several Grammys, much loved in Italy where in his career he has won a diamond disc, 76 platinum, and 15 gold, with a record attendance in the top 10, in Milan returns to perform in front of 450 winners of a La Feltrinelli competition and a few other lucky guests.
An audience that repeatedly sings and gets excited about some of the main successes of the baronet Ed and to which the artist offers a priceless show, the only one scheduled in Italy for 2023. White T-shirt and standard cargo trousers, Ed Sheeran performs for about an hour, opening the show with ‘Boat’, among the singles of the new album followed by ‘Eyes closed’, the single that anticipates the album, written a few years ago and which has taken on a completely new after Ed suffers the heartbreaking loss of his friend. “I wanted a perfect acoustic album, I’ve been working on it for over 10 years – the artist tells from the stage, performing with her eyes closed -. Then my pregnant wife discovered she had cancer without being able to cure it until after giving birth, my best friend Jamal passed away and I was overcome with grief. It was only at Jamal’s funeral that I realized I would never see him again.”
On stage Ed confides, before attacking ‘Life goes on’, another of the tracks from the new album: “When my friend died I wanted everything to stop like when Queen Elizabeth died – underlines Sheeran – but I I realized that after one day everyone had returned to their former lives while I am still as sad as the first day after 15 months. I think it is right to feel this way, there is nothing wrong with it but the important thing is to keep someone’s memory alive and don’t feel guilty about it. Life goes on.”
Tonight, warns the artist, “there won’t only be sad songs” but, he assures, there will also be room to dance and sing along to his most famous hits. Promise kept. And she has fun with her audience, she sings and performs only with guitar and piano to accompany her voice. No imposing sets or giant stadium screens, they are not needed. On stage he is alone but he doesn’t seem so, his voice is so powerful.
Ed attacks ‘The end of Youth’, ‘Color Blind’ and ‘Sycamore’ letting go, with this last song, another intimate confidence: “It was February and I was rehearsing for the Brit Awards when I learned of the tumor about my wife – explains Sheeran – at that moment everything flashes before your eyes. She was 6 months pregnant…now I can say that my daughter was born and is doing well, that my wife has regular checkups but it was a really hard and difficult time.” We then move on to ‘No strings’ and ‘The Hills of Aberfeldy’, the song that closes the new album, before moving on to his flagships: ‘Perfect’, which the artist has performed in the past in duet with Andrea Bocelli and which drives the audience crazy.
“When I prepared the piece with Andrea I was studying Italian every day, I was doing lessons now I’ve lost it a bit and I would like to go back to perfecting it soon” confesses Sheeran. In the hall we dance to the rhythms of ‘Bad Habits’, ‘Thinking out loud’, and ‘Shape of you’ until the artist leaves the microphone aside and sings ‘Departing glass’, “a folk song that my Irish father played and which is sung in the pubs at the end of the evening”. The culmination of the evening on the notes of ‘Afterglow’, with which Ed closes the live, leaving everyone present with the feeling of having witnessed something truly special. (by Federica Mochi)
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