#ed 2014

OKIE so i got to the venue 3 hours before the doors opened. There were already about 50-100ish people there but I still managed to get super close to the door. Because the venue was “open air” (no roof) you could kinda hear what was going on up on stage, so I heard Ed’s entire soundcheck (Give Me Love and something else) and I think I may have had a mini heart attack. (This happened like 4 times in total that evening). For the last 2 hours before the doors opened, we were standing and were packed like sardines, but I somehow still managed to befriend a group of Americans living in Vienna (I didn’t get their names oops. I know that the guy was named Eric.)

When they opened the doors, I didn’t even need to walk because the mass of people literally caused me to *flow* along. After checking my bag and scanning my ticket, there was a sprint to the front of the stage, and I got pretty close, like 6-7ish row or something. But after a while we got closer.

After 30 minutes or so, Ryan Keen started performing. He was AMAZING. Literally the things he does with the guitar… I didn’t really know any of his songs (I think nobody did tbh) but hearing him perform them live made them exponentially better. (Look him up. Hearts in my eyes for him). Sadly, I think he only played a 30 minute set, but it was great and I’d 341% go see him in concert again. 

Then there was a long break (longer than planned, because some technical stuff was’t cooperating. around the 20-30 minute mark, i think) and then Saint Raymond came on the stage with his band. He was good, too. I liked his voice.

AND THEN Ed came on. The guitar he was using for this gig was Chris, but he switched it two or three times for the one without the name written on it, with the embedded ‘+’.

Ed opened with I’m a Mess. Then came Lego House, Don’t, and Drunk (i think). Then he decided to quiet down the crowd so he did the “1. universal ‘shhh’ 2.if anybody yells, stroke them 3. universal ‘shhh’” bit and then did Wayfaring Stranger (the last part of which he sang without a mic, god bless him). I’m not sure about the order of the rest of the songs, but he played: One, Bloodstream, Be My Husband  (at the beginning of which I yelled “be my husband” at him, i hope he appreciated my humour), Take It Back (with new bonus lyrics, I think), Give Me Love, Thinking Out Loud, and Sing. 

EDIT: oh look i found a site with the apparent set list. looks about right.

Before starting “Sing”, he introduced it as “his last song for the evening” and did the whole “after I stop playing, keep singing it; after I walk off stage, keep singing it, etc.” So after he walked off, we continued singing. But some people thought it would be a better idea to stop singing/ start yelling “Ed, Ed!”. But we just kept on singing and yelling and soon enough those people caught on, so the entire crowd started to sing again and at that point he finally came back and we got an encore (yes hallelujah). It consisted of YNMIDNY (to which he added some new lyrics, I think), A Team (where he wanted us to get out lighters/ cellphones. And the sea of lights we made was beautiful), and finished off with I See Fire. (this last bit was around 25 mins).