Ed Sheeran finds the sum of India in Delhi, closing his Mathematics Tour on the perfect high

Armed with nothing but a loop pedal, a guitar, and an unmistakable voice that shifted effortlessly between hushed confessions to a stadium-sized wails, Ed Sheeran bid India farewell at his last concert in the capital last night

Somewhere between the syrupy sentimentality of Perfect and the wistful nostalgia of Photograph, my voice had staged a full-scale mutiny. What had started to emerge from my throat could only be described as the tragic wheeze of a deflating bagpipe, or perhaps a particularly anguished accordion. This, as it turned out, was exactly what Ed Sheeran wanted.

“You guys are too focused on singing in tune,” he told the 25,000-strong crowd at the Leisure Valley Ground in Gurugram, the final stop of his six-city India tour. “That’s my job. I need you to scream-sing.” And so we did, our vocal cords be damned.

The 33-year-old Englishman was now a veteran of Indian audiences and had chosen to expand his touring geography with a six-city tour in the country. “The first time I came to India was in 2015; we played in Mumbai,” he said. “Then the next time, Mumbai. And the next time, Mumbai. Finally, I said, ‘Why don’t we play somewhere else?’ And here we are.” The day before, he had roamed the streets of Old Delhi before making his way across town to serenade fans in the National Capital for the very first time.

Indie-pop sensation Lisa Mishra joined the ranks of Sheeran’s previous openers —  Kayan, Mali (aka Maalvika Manoj), Dot, and Armaan Malik — as Sheeran’s Delhi warm-up act. She stepped onto the stage with a quiet confidence that made you suspect she was about to take complete control of the room. She did. A medley of her own tracks, a smooth cover of Arijit Singh’s Kabira, and her Call Me Bae anthem Yaara Tere Bin later, the audience was sufficiently primed for the main course.

Sheeran’s entrance was, in keeping with his brand, delightfully unpretentious. No grand pyrotechnics, no elaborate stage choreography, no dramatic countdown — just a scruffy-looking redhead in a black T-shirt emblazoned with ‘DELHI’ across the chest, an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder, and a loop pedal, which he patiently explained to the audience, allowed him to layer beats and instrumentals in real-time. If you weren’t paying attention to the opening chords of Castle on the Hill, you might have thought he had a full band hidden somewhere backstage.

For a first-timer at a Sheeran concert, the whole thing feels part science, part sorcery. A tap on the body of his guitar morphs into a heartbeat, a few strums build into a melody, and before anyone fully grasps what’s happening, the song is airborne. Unlike his chart-topping peers, who arrive with a battalion of backup dancers and sometimes even pre-recorded tracks, Sheeran operates with a kind of audacious minimalism. He builds, layers, loops, and experiments — each track morphing into something unique to that night, that city, that moment.

But Sheeran is nothing if not a showman. At times, it feels like watching a magician who still delights in his own tricks, grinning as he pushes his sound to new, unexpected places. There’s something quite charming about the boyish amusement with which he effortlessly turns a massive crowd into an intimate campfire sing-along, pulling thousands into the palm of his hand as makeshift choirs with a simple strum, a foot tap, or an impromptu quip about the audience’s enthusiasm — or lack thereof. “Are your voices feeling warmed up?” he asked before launching into Thinking Out Loud. “If you don’t know the words to this next song, you’re at the wrong gig.”