Britain’s Ed Sheeran Brings “Mathematics” Tour To Kansas City, Missouri
Photographs by Corinne D. Sullivan
KANSAS CITY, Mo, August 5, 2023: The air was Missouri-hot inside the Kansas City Chief’s Arrowhead Stadium when it housed the United Kingdom’s multi- multi- multi-platinum recording artist and Grammy winning songwriter Ed Sheeran on his “Mathematics” Tour, based upon the artist’s “Mathematics” collection of albums: + (2011), x (2014), ÷ (2017), = (2021), and - (2023). Each album in the “Mathematics” series achieved multi-platinum sales, and continue to rise.
It is mind-boggling what it must have taken. The show includes massive LED screens shaped into six guitar picks. These are suspended from screen-entwined trussing totems. There is also a three-story-high circle of screens above the stage. Upon all this LED work, Sheeran’s face and guitar were everywhere in the Missouri sky, as well as the remorseless, dynamic, shifting artifacts of the Ed Sheeran brand.
The lovely British songwriter Cat Burns was the first act which Ed Sheeran sang praises for, later on-stage. After Cat Burns, we were entranced by hugely successful American singer/songwriter Khalid. His thoroughly fantastic opening included some of his best work like “Talk” and “Better,” nicely punctuated by Khalid’s dancing and effervescent persona. Khalid was invited back, later in the show by Sheeran, to perform their 2019 chart-topper, “Beautiful People.”
I want to drop my poetry, and philosophic edge, to tell you: don’t miss seeing Ed Sheeran live. This show, please.
Ed Sheeran knows how to fill an audience with simply happy feelings. ‘Cause he’s running, and jumping, and singing, and there are continuous fireworks, and smoke is sifting in the wind, plus the stage looks like it landed from another planet, but just everywhere is that giddy Ed Sheeran hazy love thing. All the while, Sheeran appears to be soulful, sometimes even misty-eyed.
Talking about his song “The A Team” on stage, Sheeran saw it as a measuring stick for audiences at the outset of his American career. It was a success which brought him to Kansas City in 2015, opening for The Rolling Stones. “The A Team” is a tearjerker that takes the listener down the road so deadly as personal abuse and affliction, as well as the brutalist social stigma that finally terminates those without recourse.
There are only a few artists who dare to build a brand about loyalty and real love. It’s my personal conviction Ed Sheeran can do it successfully because, truly, he must have an honest affinity for people, without being open to discrimination. Actually, he fairly reminds me of earlier British songwriting legend John Lennon who penned historic songs of inclusion such as “Let It Be”(1970) with Paul McCartney, and “Imagine” (1971) all on his own.
Earlier, in May, I blogged about Ed Sheeran’s victorious legal battle in New York. He was proven fully innocent. It was all about a wrongful accusation delivered to him in a copyright infringement case that was brought about by songwriters of “Let’s Get It On” concerning an Ed Sheeran ballad, “Thinking Out Loud”.
Sheeran felt the other party tried to manipulate the reality of the two works before the judge, in order to convince the jury that they had a genuine claim against him. Sheeran spoke about the ramifications of this unchecked in the legal world: “This seems so dangerous to me, both to potential claimants who may be convinced to bring a bogus claim, as well as those songwriters facing them. It’s simply wrong. By stopping this practice, we can also properly support genuine music copyright claims, so legitimate claims are rightly heard and resolved.”
It’s always a gift to watch, in person, Ed Sheeran at work. For me, personally, his life is a testament of the need to provide music education to American children and adults, and to provide education concerning the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
More specifically:
Article 27
1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
The only thing to fear about Sheeran is his heart breaking so that he no longer writes songs as fantastic as those he has brought to us, so far. Providing information about the need to protect human rights of songwriters such as he is a good reason to keep my work inside The Article 27 Music Project alive and moving along.
It felt wonderful to see Ed Sheeran singing to the American masses who reciprocate his love. The Kansas City crowds have famously proven themselves capable of doing just that, Super Bowl after Super Bowl—and during the “Mathematics” Tour’s grand finale with Ed Sheeran performing his encore in a Chief’s jersey, Number 9.
Written by Corinne D. Sullivan
