Ed Sheeran @ Nouveau Casino

Crédit photo: Emma Creed.

I have always found French concerts a bizarre experience. In England we are far less reserved – we fight to get to the front; we kick each other in the face crowd surfing, we invade the stage if we don’t like the music and we invade it when we do like it. This strange animalistic behavior is engrained in our culture and even if we wanted to, we couldn’t stop ourselves doing it. The French however, are far more patient. If they don’t like a band, they quietly and respectfully let them play; waiting for the group they’re actually excited to see to come onstage. Before now, I’ve mistaken this polite behavior for a lack of passion, but Ed Sheeran’s concert at Le Nouveau Casino proved me wrong.

After a twelve-hour day at Uni (sadly, I’m not exaggerating) I cycled across Paris terrified I was going to miss the one band I was supposed to be reviewing. Fortunately for myself and for Psychedelic Electric I made it.

The last time I saw Ed Sheeran was at Reading Festival. The entire experience was insane, everyone knows he writes and plays pretty, acoustic songs that are often ballads but nonetheless around forty people must have been pulled out of the audience before he even came onstage and the organisers were threatening that he would not play if the crowd didn’t calm down. The audience was word perfect -- they knew every word to every song and he couldn’t speak for the screams of young girls telling him they loved him. In Paris, it was different. It was more romantic. I missed the crowd that knew all the words and the gritty enthusiasm of the audience but it was beautiful to see him play to such a quiet, respectful group of people. Even though he spoke fast and in a thick London accent, the crowd let him explain each song and awkwardly tell them how excited he was to be playing his first Parisian show. Several girls in the front row handed him letters and teddy bears and he dutifully blushed, saying thank you before moving on to the next song. Despite the language barrier, he still managed to get the audience singing along to “You Need Me, I don’t Need You”, possibly his best known song in the UK and even had time for a cover of Feeling Good, unplugged. As he sang the audience were silent, barely daring to breathe in case they were louder than him and his guitar and boy, it felt good.