Review and photos by Crave’s Intrepid Guest Reviewer, Debbie.
We arrived a little late, thanks to the usual Mt Smart parking chaos and road closures, and missed the opening act. But we walked in just as Ed Sheeran was taking the stage, which, somehow, felt oddly perfect. The GA floor was already packed, buzzing with anticipation, and we tucked ourselves into the left-front area before gradually working our way deeper into the crowd.
The floor was a mix: families with small children, groups of friends chatting happily (sometimes very happily, even during songs), and clusters of clearly devoted Ed fans. As the night went on, we gravitated toward the latter. The energy was different there, less social, more locked in.
Sheeran’s stage setup was impressive without feeling overdone. The main stage was complemented by a lit bridge leading to a B stage, and while I’m generally not a fan of B stages, especially when you’ve paid good money to be close to the show, the bridge itself was genuinely well integrated. Ed sang his way across it, making it feel like part of the performance rather than a gimmick. The B stage, however, did slightly fracture the experience. The sound wasn’t as strong, and you could feel the crowd’s attention dip. At one point, a guy near me summed it up perfectly: “He’s losing us.”
That said, Ed Sheeran remains a phenomenal live performer. I’ve seen him five times now, and he never disappoints, not musically and not in how he works a crowd. He encourages jumping, dancing, full participation, and Auckland absolutely delivered. He even called out how crowds in different countries jump to his songs, and the GA floor responded in kind. The entire crowd was bouncing, united in motion, and it felt electric.
One of the night’s most joyful moments came during Photograph, when he asked everyone to take photos to fire their phone flashes. Thousands of tiny lights lit up the stadium, creating a shared, quietly euphoric moment which managed to feel intimate despite the scale.
Sheeran did sound overly rehearsed and polished at times (confirmed later by seeing TikToks from the following night where some of the same set bits appeared), but he has an uncanny ability to make even polished moments feel personal; you feel as if he’s talking directly to you. There were flashes of warmth and maturity that made me think, oh right, he’s a dad now. I loved that.
Vocally, this is where Ed truly shines. His voice is intimate, unforced, and emotionally direct. And then there’s the looping, which remains genius. I remember seeing him in Auckland back in 2016 and being amazed at how he made looping work live. Years later, it’s seamless. You forget it’s happening. It doesn’t distract; it disappears, which is exactly why it works.
The show opened strong with You Need Me, I Don’t Need You, immediately setting the tone and pulling the crowd in. A run of slower, more emotional songs followed, and while they were beautifully performed, they did cause a brief dip in momentum which was particularly noticeable on the edges of the crowd, where conversations started up again. But Sheeran knows how to pace a stadium show. He ramped the energy back up quickly and reeled people back in.
A personal highlight was hearing songs he’s written for other artists, including One Direction and Justin Bieber, which added a fun, unexpected layer to the set.
It’s always a little surprising how well stadium tours work for Ed Sheeran. Stadiums are usually built for massive bands with huge, bombastic sound, yet he manages not only to fill them with people, but with his music. The enormous screen visuals were striking, the production polished, and at several points flames burst from the stage, a heat you could feel even from the floor.
I genuinely can’t remember the exact encore or final song, but I do remember the feeling. Shape of You was a massive singalong, the crowd was jumping in unison, and that shared movement became the lasting image of the night.
Walking out, I felt glowy and satisfied. Ahhh, yes, what a good show. I see Ed Sheeran every time he comes to Auckland, and the last two times I even had tickets to both nights. That says it all.
