I went to see Ed Sheeran last week on the opening night of his Cardiff shows at the Principality Stadium (still feels weird not calling it the Millennium Stadium). He had four shows there from Thursday 21st June to Sunday 24th June. His support acts were Jamie Lawson and Anne Marie who were also excellent. I had to speak about it in this blog post and share the images I have as well.
Travel to Cardiff
I went to the concert with my sister Jadie, my Mum and Mark. Jadie came to Tenby in the morning on Thursday and saw me in work as well as visiting my grandparents before we headed to Cardiff. Mum, Mark and I all finished work at 12pm and we went home to change quickly before beginning our journey. We wanted to get there earlier so we could park up in our favourite area and have a meal before heading to the stadium.
The drive went fairly quickly to be honest. There were delays later in the day as a section of the M4 was closed eastbound after a traffic collision but thankfully we had left early enough to avoid this! We parked up opposite my university building (The ATRiuM, University of South Wales) so that when the concert was over we could head straight out towards Cardiff Bay and the M4.
We had Pizza Express for dinner and had made a reservation in advance. Thankfully we had planned everything beforehand as town was understandably busy! I had the Vegan Giardiniera pizza which was lovely (I’ve had it before on the Romana crust but I tried the regular base today). I also had a Watermelon Chill which was a blend of apple, watermelon and strawberry with fresh mint. After our food we strolled towards our entrance to the stadium for 5pm.
We had standing tickets and we didn’t realise but the whole bottom tier of seats were unreserved. We chose seats off to the right-hand side of the stage and only a few rows back. We were pretty much level with the stage and had plenty of room to stand up and dance! Fantastic view too!
Jamie Lawson
The opening act for Ed Sheeran was Jamie Lawson. I only know one of his songs which is ‘Wasn’t Expecting That’. The music he performed was good but I didn’t really get into the performance because of not knowing the music. He saved Wasn’t Expecting That for his last song and it was a good performance! I wouldn’t have liked to have been first to perform and he did a good job.
Anne Marie
I knew more of Anne Marie’s music and I was looking forward to seeing her live. She performed lots of her songs including FRIENDS, Rockabye and 2002 amongst others.
We were glad there were seats as we got into the stadium at 5pm, Jamie Lawson was due on at 6:30pm, Anne Marie at 7:30pm and Ed Sheehan at 8:45pm I believe. It was quite a long time to be standing if you weren’t there early enough to get seats!
Ed Sheeran
I don’t know where to begin… Ed came on stage at 8:45pm and literally captivated the crowd from start to finish. I was gobsmacked that he could perform the music with just him, a guitar and his looping system. I used to record every second of concerts I attended but have recently been avoiding that as much and really taking in the atmosphere and enjoying the music opposed to watching through a lens.
I think that my favourite performance of the evening was Galway Girl. It’s one of the songs on Divide that I really love and could play over and over. As soon as it came on I couldn’t help but sing and dance!
I really enjoyed the concert and I am really glad I went. I was so impressed at how Ed Sheeran performed by himself and the only other person on stage was someone handing him different guitars throughout the evening!
Have you been to a live music concert recently? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Glen Conbeer 