Ed Sheeran announces Croke Park gig

It’s been one hell of a fortnight for crowd favourite Ed Sheeran – first he performs with Beyonce, then he celebrated his 24th birthday, and now he has delighted the Irish masses by announcing a huge gig in Croke Park this summer.

Needless to say, fans went wild when the news was announced yesterday and it wasn’t long before Ed Sheeran, #rtesheeran, and #CrokePark all began trending on Twitter.

Speaking with Ryan Tubridy on 2FM, the multi-platinum star said he enjoyed last month’s intimate gig in Whelan’s so much he had to come back for more.

“I enjoyed it enough to extend the tour that I said I would never extend! I said ‘I’m gonna book the Wembley gigs and that’s it. I can’t book any more gigs, I need a break’, so I enjoyed Dublin enough to come back and definitely do that.”

After playing three sold-out gigs in Wembley Arena this summer, Sheeran will play Croke Park on July 24.

“I’ve never been to Croke Park before,” he said. “I’ve heard the most amazing things about it. They don’t do many concerts so I never expected to play there. Just because one, its quite a big venue; and two, they only do about three concerts a year so it’s gonna be an honor to play there.

“Wembley was meant to be the last thing I did for a year, so now Croke Park will be the last thing I do for a year.”

In the meantime, the artist will be working away on a third album — his second one sold more than 6m copies worldwide.

“I just wanna make the third album and I wanna make sure the third album is good,” he said. “I don’t want to hash up any old thing and release songs that are sub-standard, I wanna make sure the album’s properly good.

“I think I’ve got three songs that are really stellar. I’ve got like another a year and a half to keep writing.”

Though born in Britain, Sheeran has family in Ireland and considers it a second home.

“I’ve been coming to Ireland on average four or five times a year since I was born just to visit my family. I’d like to think it’s my country as well as the UK,” he said.

“I really, really like Ireland, I would move there in a heartbeat.”

Surprisingly, the modest star also feels that he has hit the high point of his career already. “I’m in the peak of my career, I hope it keeps peaking for as long as possible, but I can’t complain at all,” he said.

Ed Sheeran plays Croke Park on July 24. Tickets go on sale on February 26 from ticketmaster.ie and Ticketmaster outlets nationwide.

Few rags-to-riches stories as dramatic as humble star’s

Ed Power

On July 24, a scrawny 24-year-old with tousled red hair and a big silly grin will stride before 80,000 people at Croke Park, armed with just an acoustic guitar and an aching falsetto.

Presented in those kind of stark terms, the rise (and rise) of Ed Sheeran is truly remarkable — a few years ago, the English singer-songwriter was literally crooning for his supper on street corners and outside tube stations in London. Now he is headlining Ireland’s largest venue, part of a summer tour that will also see him perform to more than 150,000 fans across three nights at Wembley Stadium. There are many rags-to-riches stories in pop music. Few are as dramatic.

How to explain his remarkable appeal? Sheeran’s gooey, accessible music is part of the answer — but only part. For many, his winning quality is his lad-down-the-street persona. With his uniform of hoodies and chunky runners and permanent hang-dog demeanour, there is nothing glamorous, or unapproachable about Sheeran — his songs, about young love and Gen Y frustration, are relatable because he is relatable. Sheeran, for want of a better label, is the anti-Gaga, a normal bloke who finds himself living an extraordinary life and responds with the sort of good-natured bafflement most of us would probably exhibit in the same circumstances.

Without question, his Irish heritage has enhanced his popularity here. Sheeran’s family is from Wexford and he speaks warmly of childhood summers on his grandparent’s farm in Gorey. He even has an Irish phrase tattooed to his right arm – the words “Nuair is gá dom a fháil sa bhaile is tú mo solas treorach” (“when I need to get home, you’re my guiding light”) translated from lyrics by his Belfast-based friend and one-time mentor Foy Vance.

Of course, beneath the ordinariness, Sheeran is fiercely driven. Through the half-decade of struggle leading to his breakthrough in 2011, his ambition never wavered. When the music industry declined to give him the time of day, his response was to build a career from the ground up. In 2010, he estimated he played upwards of 300 gigs, expanding his support-base one fan at a time.

In that respect he is a quintessential star of the social media age. The traditional music press never cared for him; even today critics tend to be sniffy. Rather than be propelled by media hype, the key to Sheeran’s success has been his army of aficionados, spreading the Gospel of Ed tweet by tweet.

“I can distribute my music independently,” he told this reporter as things were beginning to happen for him in 2011. “I can make a video for no money, put it on YouTube, tell fans about it on Twitter and Facebook. It’s all good.”

Little did he know just how much better things would get.