Review: Ed Sheeran at Vector Arena

Screams erupted from the crowd as singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran stepped into the spotlight and plugged in his guitar. Photo / Getty Images

Screams erupted from the crowd as singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran stepped into the spotlight and plugged in his guitar.

Busting straight into I'm A Mess from latest album x, Sheeran showed he was anything but as he used his loop pedal to create a stomping beat under his strumming and layered vocal harmonies, one over the other.

Seeing Sheeran construct each song right before your ears felt like watching someone weaving a musical tapestry.

The ginger-haired singer's looping technique showed that he has no need for a backing band, though it still looks kind of lonely up there.

It might have been nice to see Sheeran with some friends on stage - even for part of the show - to add a different dynamic.

Still, his live one-man band act remains truly impressive.

Lego House, accompanied by a stop-motion video of lego pieces playing across multiple screens was lapped up by Sheeran's fans. As was his energetic version of Drunk, from debut album +.

Sheeran was having a ball on stage as he mashed-up his hits with other songs.

Taking from Chris Brown's track Loyal, he added in a few lines of "these girls ain't loyal" into Don't - a song thought to be about Sheeran's ex, Ellie Goulding cheating on him with Niall Horan of One Direction - also adding in Blackstreet's No Diggity near the end of the song.

On Take It Back, Stevie Wonder's Superstition and Bill Withers' Ain't No Sunshine was thrown into the mix while 50 cent's In Da Club and Iggy Azalea's Fancy featured on Sheeran's encore of You Need Me, I Don't Need You.

Nina Simone's Feeling Good knitted its way into the intro of I See Fire, complete with video flames from Smaug.

Recalling penning the tune for the second Hobbit film, Sheeran said that he "wrote this song in your beautiful country and it made me fall in love with it."

Slowing things down for the emotional ballad Photograph was disrupted by squealing feedback and a broken string.

The arena fell into a hush for the gently plucked notes Tenerife Sea and the beautiful song brought out the phones to be waved in the air like fireflies.

The music video for Thinking Out Loud played behind the singer has he played everyone's favourite wedding song on an electric guitar.

The night ended with Sheeran - sounding like he was losing his voice - struggling slightly with the falsetto high notes of Sing, though he still managed to turn the room into a dance party for his fans who jumped and clapped for the singer as he left the stage.

Who: Ed Sheeran
Where: Vector Arena
When: Saturday (again tonight)