To be honest, when you’ve never been to a concert before, (that’s if you can discount the Whigfield concert that you had been to when you were in college, before your English paper, which . But didn’t quite feel like one), you seize any opportunity to attend one that comes your way. So let’s say this was your first one.
Where others take solo trips to exotic locales, you do solo concerts and movies, the life of a single soul.
As you had always liked Ed Sheeran, so it was never question that you would pass an opportunity to see him perform live in concert. And after hearing about it from your sisters who had been for his show in Dubai, you just knew you had to go. But then seeing the ticket price, caused most of your friends to choose to skip it, including your burgers and fries. Nobody wanted to pay so much just to be on your feet for hours under the sun and coping with the Mumbai weather, just to watch Ed play on a screen, as they felt the stage wouldn’t be quite visible for the people with the tickets that was in our budget.
All this didn’t quite justify the price of the ticket for them. To good extent this rationale also seemed valid to you, after all you are always trying to save though you are never been quite successful at it.
But then there’s also the thing like you only live once and you need to make the most when an opportunity presents itself. Besides there are things you need to do for yourself when for the longest time you’ve been paying EMIs or putting things on hold cause somehow you always found yourself having other pressing things.
So now that you could afford to spend on it, you just went ahead purchased the ticket. Prateek Kuhhad being one of the opening act was just the cherry on the cake.
So you find yourself at the venue at 3. Although you planned to reach by 4 but somehow you managed to reach an hour early, and you are grateful you did.
Firstly, there’s a line to get into the venue. And though it did move kind of faster than the Mumbai traffic during peak hours, it did take its time to get you to where you were supposed to be.
And there comes the second reason why you are grateful that you reached the venue early. To your surprise and delight, you find that you have access that’s closest to the stage. This meant that those who brought least expensive tickets were the ones closest to the stage, and could see Ed and the other performers clearly, whereas the ones who shelled out big bucks had to view him from the screens.
On the hindsight this was good arrangement as the ones around the stage were the actual fans than those hoity toity ones.
All this made you feel glad that you decided to go for the concert.
But now you had quite a long wait before the start of the concert, spending time on your feet under the unobstructed Mumbai sun.
So you found yourself amongst a sea of youth, mostly of the fairer sex. An uncle in the between all the youth. But then you are ok with it.
Finally at 5, Prateek and his band took to the stage, kicking off the proceeding the song called CO2, a song you hadn’t heard before but hearing it made you want to go and give it a listen on repeat.
It was beautiful. His voice had this beautiful soothing quality that wrapped you up it in its warmth, making you feel all so light hearted and elated like you just had a shot of dopamine.
And then you heard those familiar chords play, and you know you were in for treat as he began singing Kasoor, a song that you not just hear, but you need to feel it, and at the concert you had to hear it.
It felt surreal, it felt something different something beautiful, not just hearing it live but hearing those thousands of people sing it together with him. It was indeed a surreal moment that moved you (cause the song always moved you and left you with this lump in your throat cause of the memory it holds for you).
You just wanted him to go on and on and never stop cause that moment felt so beautiful and surreal.
He then sang a brand new song that wasn’t released as yet and he was performing it for the very first time. Sadly, it didn’t leave a good impression on you. But then any song following Kasoor would always be eclipsed by the beauty and awesomeness of the later song.
How you wish he would sing the song that actually sealed the deal and made you purchase the ticket (even if it was an Ed Sheeran concert). That song was all you needed.
Alas it wasn’t to be so. He introduced his band mentioned that the next one would be the last of his set list.
This wasn’t fair. He just performed for 30 minutes and he didn’t sing the song that you came here to hear. Yeah, it was the song that got him on the Obama year-end list, it was no All I Need.
So with Cold/Mess he completed his set list, took a bow and exited not quiet stage left ( what would be stage left on a circular stage?), leaving you a little wanting more and bit disappointed with the brevity of his performance and the fact that he didn’t know how to work the circular stage and for the entire performance had his back to half the audience.
Anyway, that’s that, what’s done cannot be undone. You could only hope that Callum Scott could do better than him.
So once again you had to wait as the stage was frantically being set for the next act to come.
At round six Callum’s band takes the stage. You funnily mistake his pianist to be Callum only to realise your mistake when Callum takes the stage dressed in all white, belting out Lighthouse, bringing the crowd alive that probably kind of hit snooze button during the gap between the two act (or maybe the weather and Prateek did it).
Whatever it maybe, the crowd was once more alive and on their feet, singing along to Callum’s tunes as he belted them on the stage.
Callum, on his part, worked the crowd, effectively using the circular stage to reach each every end, charming the crowd with not just his music but also with his personality, with his heart.
So whether he was singing tunes that had the crowd dancing along to upbeat songs like “Where are you know”, or then mesmerised like “Heaven” and “Biblical”. And then his attempt at speaking a few words of Hindi like “Shukriya” and “Main aap say bahut pyaar karta ho” was simply charming. And not to forget how much he loved the city, besides its traffic (now who would love the Mumbai traffic, except if you were in Bangalore).
And then he sings “You are the reason” which causes you to melt, and not just by the Mumbai heat. He dedicates to anyone who’s been in love and love in all its form and not just the romantic form.
Seeing the way he got overwhelmed when he heard the crowd sang along with him probably was the highlight of your evening (and you still had Ed Sheeran to come)
He finally ended his with the song that earned him Simon Cowell’s Golden Buzzer, “Dancing on my own”, seamlessly transitioning into “I want to dance with somebody”. And with that he ended his 40 minutes set list, but in those 40 minutes he won over many hearts (even yours truly), making every minute of those minutes beautiful and count. And he wasn’t even the main act!
So now it was back to waiting for Ed Sheeran to take the stage as the crew quickly and quite effortlessly dismantled the band and got the rotating part of the stage ready, much to yours and those around you delight.
So you once again you had to wait patiently before the main event could start, waiting patiently under the glow of red form the stage and its LED screens, in the Mumbai heat with very little breeze, even though you were close to the sea, a reminder that summer will be soon setting in.
You try to stay hydrated and stay patient, constantly hoping from one foot to another, looking at your watching wondering how long till Ed would take the stage, wondering wouldn’t it be better running outside than standing here on a not so hot night, hoping that it would be worth it. So far only Callum lived up to it and then some more.
You begin to worry if you would soon run out of patient.
7:15 comes and goes and there’s still no sign of Ed. You wonder if he got bitten by the Indian Standard Time, or like Callum he was caught in traffic?
As if an answer to your question, the screen brings up the timer indicating the minutes to the start of his performance.
By this time crowd were getting a bit restless (who wouldn’t be when you been on your feet for this long in the Mumbai heat). They took to singing songs that were being played over the system, breaking into Blinded by the light by The Weekend.
They let out a big cheer when the clock came on and began counting down as soon it was 20 seconds to show time.
And at exactly 7:30, Ed took the stage from within the stage, much to the screaming delight of all those there, especially the women.
You had seen these scenes in countless footage of concerts but it was something else to actually be there in person. At one point you were sure that one of those ladies would throw their bra or panties on the stage.
He effortlessly moved around the stage thanks to the revolving section, while pyro fireworks and flames went off all around him, giving a feel like your were in a rock concert (cooking those who happened to be close to it).
You anyway are here for the music along with the experience, so you take it all in as part of your concert experience.
You try to figure the song Ed is singing, not because he’s not clear but you don’t know the song. You do like his music and you have been fan, but you cannot boast that you know or have heard each and every song. But then this doesn’t really matter cause at the end of the day you’re enjoying the music.
You marvel at the fact that he’s on the stage by himself. He doesn’t need a band to accompany him. He doesn’t need any pre-recorded track, so there’s no question of lip-syncing. In fact he creating music on the fly, a musical loop, as he would explain how he would create a loop by layering musical sections over each other, to play in a loop, that would cease to exist at the end of the song (how very Mission Impossible like).
So it’s just him and what looks like a keyboard and his constantly changing guitars. You actually marvel at the fact that after each song his stage help (that’s a terminology for me) comes and give him a new guitar.
What’s amazing is how his energy never dips. He’s like this amazing amazing energiser bunny that goes on and on and on and on without tiring , without boring you (well there were moments where you tried to stifle a yawn, checked your watch, shuffled from one feet to the other, but then you’ll put it down to being one of the senior citizens out there and you needing your sleep). It all made you wonder what was in that drink that he was continuously sipping.
He commanded the stage and enthralled his audience by getting them to sing along (as they even needed a push to do that, in fact the girls next to me knew the lyrics of every song). He even tried to get them harmonise to Gimme Love (a song that you loved and somewhere forgotten that was sung by him) to decent success.
He shared anecdotes that led to songs like how he wrote Eyes Closed when he lost his friend, or singing one of his earliest singles in empty bars and Open Mics hoping to be discovered, which initially was a small hit, but when re-released become a hit and got him the recognition that he deserved, leading to A-Team (another song that had made you fall in love with him but somewhere got lost in all his current music).
He had crowd swooning to songs like Tenerife sea, and the wedding first dance staple Perfect and Thinking Out Loud, asking the crowd to put on the torch on their mobile phone creating a surreal moment. You are sure that somewhere in the crowd some guy is proposing to his girlfriend to this song (and as you would learn latter, someone actually did just that).
Listening to these songs made you yearn to share this moment with someone special (and the couples around you didn’t help either as they slow danced to the song culminating into a kiss).
Ed was not always on his own on stage. He got a gorgeous, leggy violinist to join him for Galloway Girl (and God could she high kick and play the violin).
You also had a couple of Indian artists making cameos. So you had Arman Mallick adding his Indian touch to Two Steps.
And then you had Diljit Dosanj joined him on stage to perform Diljit’s song, Lover, sending the crowd into a frenzy (as if they needed any reason to do that). So you had a perfect blend of Diljit’s swagger and Ed singing in Punjabi, what more could you want! This amazing performance left the crowd wanting more of this collaboration, and instinctively started chanting for the same. Sadly that wasn’t to be.
For most of the show it was just Ed, his keyboard, the loop machine (a term you coined cause you can’t think of any other name for it), and his ever changing guitar, creating music. However, he did have band when he sang a medley of songs on which he had collaborated with others artists.
So you had a medley of songs from Beautiful People, Let the River Run, South of the Border, Peru, ending it with I Don’t Care (which instinctively had you counting steps in your head).
But that didn’t stop there, he ended it with a song which had written for another artist. So there he was, singing Love Yourself which he had written for Justin Beiber.
Though you are enjoying yourself you start to look at your watch not because you’re bored but because a bit of fatigue is getting to you, and you’re a runner who needs to be in bed to wake up in time for your Sunday long run. Plus you realise that you have been on your feet as long as you took to run the Tata ultra.
So there you are, the only person in the crowd who’s constantly looking at his , trying hard to stifle a yawn, to very little success.
And then Ed disappears under the stage making you wonder whether this was it. But then this couldn’t be the end, he hadn’t even sung Shape of You yet.
But then he had thanked people coming from different parts of the country and from different countries. Could this really be it? In which case it would be quite anti-climactic. This couldn’t be it?
And just as you were ready to leave, he appears from beneath the stage in a navy blue kurta with the word Mumbai (in Hindi) on it, to a familiar tune much to your delight and the delight of all gathered there.
Once again the crowd comes alive, and you can’t help yourself but get all caught up in their enthusiasm. You dance and sing and shimmy and do a body roll and wave and do everything you can while standing in place.
Although you were tired and drained by then, you just didn’t want it to end.
But then all good things have to come to an end.
So after thanking everyone responsible for putting together the concert and for all gathered there, he promised to be back bigger and better. And with that he sang Bad Habits, the last song for the night, brining to close over two and half of nonstop fun.
So you end a very memorable evening on a flurry of streamers, applauding as ED takes one final bow and disappears beneath the stage.
You slowly make your way through the crowd who are trudging towards the exit, which is quite a long and arduous walk on worn out feet, but walk you must.
But then the soul’s satisfied with the wonderful experience you’ve had so the feet automatically complies and your heart is filled with the shape of you!!!!
