Antwerp

My boyfriend and I left our hometown at the end of the morning. We took the Eurocity from Breda to Antwerp central station. The difference between the public transport of The Netherlands and Belgium is immediately very clear. No hate to Belgium, but the trains look… rough. Furthermore, all the stations look like they were built at least 50 years ago and never renovated. Nevertheless, although it was a bit busy in the train, the trip itself was pleasant.

We have been in Antwerp before, so we did not explore the city again. The reason why went to Antwerp is because of the Ed Sheeran concert, which is a part of his Mathematics tour. Below I will tell you about our experience there.

Ed Sheeran Mathematics Tour

The trip to the concert went relatively smoothly given a very busy concert (51.000 people). We took the tram from our hotel, which was a direct line. Our stop was early enough that we could get seats. However, soon enough the tram was packed with people going to the concert. The Antwerp authorities made us go out a few stations earlier on a place where they could better regulate the crowds. They already put up a lot of barriers. All in all, I think the authorities managed it well, props to them!

Finally, we arrived at the location, Linkeroever Middenvijver. Apparently, this is a new festival location. The podium looked so insane. Another person we met at the concert compared it to a pirate ship, but I personally thought it looked more like a very cool spaceship. The screens went all around the stage, and everywhere you had a great view. The festival terrain itself was also very big and there were a lot of places you could buy drinks and food. We walked around the circle and found a very nice spot next to the path between the artist’s tent and the stage. It was not very crowded there, you could see the artists up close when they travelled between the tent and the stage, and there was basically no queue for the bar, aka a perfect spot.

The food on the concert was nice. Sebas and I shared some fries, which were tasty, but messy to eat due to the mayonnaise in the cornet (as always). The fanta was packaged in a very cute small globular bottle, which I have never seen before. Later on the evening I ordered a Pizza Caprese, which was also surprisingly tasty, so I really could not complain about the food.

Support act 1: Tori Kelly

The first support act was Tori Kelly. She is a woman with beautiful curly hair and a great voice. I did not know her songs, but I liked listening to them. This is one of the only times I actually considered listening to more songs of a support act of a concert, so that says a lot! At some point during the Ed Sheeran concert, she also sang a duet with him, which was really cute. Apparently, they are great friends :)

During her act, Sebas and I where chilling on the grass, and there we met our friend Simon. Simon is a grasshopper, that liked to sit on my leg, until I accidently threw him off. There were a lot of grasshoppers on the train, which you could often see jumping around. I hope they survived the crowd…

Support act 2: Myles Smith

I did not know who Myles Smith was before the concert, but I definitely knew his songs. He has released a lot of hits, like Stargazing and Nice To Meet You, both songs that I really like. The songs that I did not know, I also enjoyed a lot. Really this support act was such a blast!

Main act: Ed Sheeran

So, as I mentioned before, I was standing next to the path between the stage and the artist’s tent. So naturally, around the time that the concert would start, I was patiently staring at the tent’s exit to see Ed appearing, together with a vlogger girl and hiphop guy we met there. Before the timer ran out, some people were still moving some stuff between the stage and the tent, including a black box. I jokingly said, wouldn’t it be funny if Ed was actually in there. Well… he actually was in there. We were stupidly staring at the exit of the tent, while Ed Sheeran was already preparing on stage, being surprised when he suddenly started singing. Not my greatest moment.

The first song that Ed played was Castle on a Hill. Such a great nostalgic song that I really enjoy. Oh yeah, you should know I am not an Ed Sheeran Super Fan. I enjoy his songs, but I did not listen to the setlist before and I definitely do not know all his songs. This became already very apparent during the second song BLOW, which I definitely did not know. However, that really did not spoil the fun, because I enjoyed most of the songs thoroughly.

The vibe of the concert was not as energetic as other concerts I have been to, a little bit less dancing and screaming, but maybe that was also because of our location. This however did not stop me from dancing with my favorite songs, like Celestial, Nancy Mulligan, and Bad Habits. Specifically, for Celestial Ed pressured us all to jump, like really he insisted, and it was so much fun. Especially since they displayed the video clip on the big screen which includes Pokémon! (Everyone should whatch that music video it is so cute) Some of the quieter songs that I normally love as well, like Perfect, and Photograph are also great to listen to, however less nice to dance to.

Ed Sheeran, like most artists, also told some stories. He told us that he wrote the song Eyes Closed when his friend suddenly died. My dog, Toby, died a week before the concert, so that made me quite emotional as well. He also told us about the court case against him, and the struggles associated with it. He is only allowed to talk about it since recently. Stories like this make you feel like you are getting to know him a little bit better personally. However, he did not really interact with the crowd directly, which is a shame, since those moments can be some of the most memorable parts of a concert.

Official photos from the Ed Sheeran concert in Antwerp

The End

Luckily Ed did use the path between the stage and the tent to leave the stage at the end of the concert. And we were still standing next to it. This meant that we could actually see Ed from very up close, like very up close. I have never been so close to a celebrity before, which is quite fun! My verdict, he is actually quite small, but he looked super friendly!

A screenshot from the video I took of Ed Sheeran up close with of course excellent quality

Then the concert was over, and everyone left for home. This was absolutely terror. 51.000 people leaving the concert ground simultaneously, you can probably guess what happens. We thought we were smart and we wanted to take another tram line that was not the one closest to the venue. However, to do this you need to cross the river via a tunnel. Well, so many people wanted to go through that tunnel, so we had to wait there for so long. In the end, it took us 2 hours to get back to the hotel. However, this is to be expected, and certainly does not take away from the great experience we had at the concert.