LIVE: Ed Sheeran – Perth, 31 Jan 2026

Shane | 1 February 2026 | Reply

LIVE: Ed Sheeran – Perth, 31 Jan 2026
Optus Stadium, Perth, Western Australia
Reviewed by Pete Gardner
Photo used with permission, credit Mark Surridge

Ed Sheeran arrived on Australian shores for the first night of his 51 date Loop world tour to a capacity crowd at Perth’s Optus stadium tonight.

Sheeran is nothing if not a phenomenon, the singer songwriter one of the world’s top selling artists with over 200 million sales, and sells out stadiums wherever he goes. I have to confess though, Ed Sheeran is not normally on my playlist, so I was intrigued to see why this seemingly unassuming, mild mannered lad is the global mega force he has become, and tonight I did find the answer.

The evening kicked off with all-female Trad Irish band Biird (double i) helmed by Lisa Canny, a seven time All-Ireland Harp and Banjo champion. They are leading the charge to bring traditional Irish music to the mainstream, complete with the obligatory violins, harps, squeezeboxes and Gaelic dancing. The music itself was sublime, the only fly in the ointment being some technical issues with a loud bass sound drowning out the first couple of numbers, before the mix settled allowing Biird to showcase their skills. Biird will be supporting the Loop tour for all the remaining dates through Australia and South and North America over the coming year.

Mia Wray has been building her career for over a decade, having released a number of EP’s since 2014 and her debut album released last year has earned her nominations for the Australian Music Prize and Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist. As she took the stage, Mia Wray announced this was her first ever stadium show, and she’d never played to an audience of this size. If her comments and the slight nervousness in her voice indicated she was a little overwhelmed by the moment, this did not show in her performance, which was solid and entertaining showcasing tracks from the new album. Wray has a strong, emotive and powerful voice well suited to stadium performance, and with the previous technical issues settled sounded fantastic.

Vance Joy is well known to Australian audiences, taking the stage as the last rays of the setting sun hit the upper tiers of the stadium, blinding those sitting right at the back in the cheap seats. (I say cheap, but for the price you pay for one of those you could buy a dozen tickets to support local music, although this probably isn’t the forum for that discussion, so I’ll leave it to my editor to remove this bit if he wants [Fair comment – Editor])

As main support for Mr Sheeran, Vance Joy gave a confident professional performance, well received by the now almost full stadium, opening his set with the hit Missing Piece, and leading a singalong as he played Saturday Sun on the Ukulele. Hitting the mark with an obvious crowd pleaser Joy revelled in a spirited cover of Kiss’ I Was Made For Lovin’ You, and ending the set with the stadium singing along to his breakthrough hit Riptide.

The stadium is now packed to the rafters, and the diversity of the crowd shows the obvious universal appeal of Ed Sheeran, with all ages and ethnicities represented tonight, including a large number of young kids coming along for their first concert. (I pity the parents bringing their kids tomorrow night, with the new school year starting on Monday) Maybe this diversity and ability to reach out and appeal to so many explains the incredible success of Sheeran.

As the lights go down and the roar of the crowd goes up, Sheeran appears on the B stage in the centre of the front general admission area, opening with You Need Me, I Dont Need You, before moving back to the Main stage over a long retractable gantry, which reaches over the crowd like a strange robotic tentacle.

The performance is a literal one man show, Sheeran is at pains to show how everything he performs tonight is live, with no pre-recordings, even demonstrating at the start how he uses loops to build the sound behind the marathon 2 3/4 hour set. His craftsmanship is incredible, for much of the set he stands alone building soundscapes with these loops, performing songs from across his career, breathing real life into the music, which for me feels absent from the recorded versions (this is obviously just my opinion, his album sales suggest others feel differently).

Between songs he talks to the crowd with confidence and ease, commanding the stage and filling the stadium with his presence. Meanwhile the giant screen filling one end of the stadium over the main stage is an ever changing kaleidoscope of colour and images and close ups of Sheeran performing, along with fireworks and pyros filling the air above. This is a stadium show after all, so a stadium size lightshow is mandatory.

Sheeran takes things back down a notch, performing A-Team without the loops, and moving back to the B stage for a moving performance of Eyes Closed, explaining how it is dedicated to a dear friend who he lost.

One thing Sheeran has introduced on this tour is fan requests, by registering on a dedicated website, you can register your request, This really does dig into the deeper cuts from the back catalogue, and on the New Zealand leg of the tour, these were different every night.

Tonight, Sheeran confessed he had to relearn a couple of the numbers, and asks us to go easy if he messed up the words. This did lead to great renditions of Cold Coffee, to which he added that when he wrote this as a 16 year old, he didn’t think he’d be playing it in Perth to a stadium full of people in 2026. Overpass Graffiti, American Town and Afire Love rounded out the request session, which was certainly a musical highlight of the night.

Traveling back again to the main stage, Sheeran settled down for a few songs with Irish group Beoga helping to fill out the sound, including the well received Galway Girl, Camera and Celestial. The group’s sound complements Sheeran well, so I would guess this may be a taster for some future collaborations.

Alone again, another trip back to the B stage included two songs which Sheeran says will never be off the setlist, mostly because they have probably been played as wedding songs for many of the people there, and indeed there was a far bit of smooching going on around the stadium as he sang Thinking of You and Perfect.

A final trip back to the main stage closed out the night returning to the looping soundscapes, with the final numbers of the set – Symmetry, Bloodstream and Afterglow, exploding in a mass of color pyros and lasers.

With just enough time to change his T-shirt Sheeran returned quickly for the encores, probably to beat the noise curfew, giving the crowd what they wanted with the hits Shape of You, Azizam and rounding off the night with Bad Habit. A marathon set, giving the 70,000 capacity crowd just what they wanted. I started the night trying to figure out why Sheeran is so huge, I think I now know why.

The Loop tour continues with a second night at Optus Stadium on 1st February before moving on to Sydney Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide. Some tickets may even still be available if you can find them.

Accor Stadium, Sydney – February 13,14,15 .
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane – February 20,21,22.
Marvel Stadium, Melbourne – February 26, 27, 28
Adelaide Oval, Adelaide – March 5

Setlist:
Main Stage:
You Need Me, I Dont need You (Starts on B Stage)
Sapphire
Castle on the Hill
The A Team
Shivers
Don’t
B Stage:
Eyes Closed
Cold Coffee
Overpass Graffiti
American Town
Afire Love
Main Stage with Beoga:
Galway Girl
Nancy Mulligan
I Don’t Care
Old Phone
Opening
Camera
Celestial
Solo:
Photograph
B Stage:
Eastside
Thinking out Loud
Perfect
I See Fire
Main Stage:
Symmetry
Bloodstream
Afterglow