One man. One guitar. One stage. One indescribable concert. And 70,000 people all singing songs written by that one man.
A mega spectacular that had to be seen to be believed. Zagreb rocked. The one and only Ed Sheeran, truly one of the brightest stars in the world brought his tour to the capital and absolutely lit up the night sky. It was the most attended concert in Croatia in this century. Or as my nephew, a musician himself said “Absolutely amazing! Definitely the biggest show in Croatia ever!”
For two and a half hours straight he poured out the hits and seemed to have the energy of a nuclear reactor as his positivity swept over the masses. If you could bottle his energy Red Bull would go bankrupt.
“Imagine what that must feel like?” I screamed at my wife as Ed hit the stage to open the concert. “He has 70,000 people singing songs that he wrote in his bedroom, they know all the lines, crazy,” I added.
My voice is still a little raspy, like Barry White with a sore throat.
Photo - Mark Thomas
From playful children to pensioners, all as one. He added a few “singalongs” with the crowd and the noise was deafening.
The Sheeran story is one of sheer and utter determination, a rags to riches tale. From being bullied at school, to having an alcoholic father, from dropping out of school at 16, to leaving home and living homeless on the streets of London. He wasn’t born into privilege or money and he wasn’t “discovered” on a talent show or even by a record label or producer.
And by his own omission, wouldn’t be interesting to the opposite sex if he couldn’t sing.
But sing he can, my Lord can he sing!
Photo - Mark Surridge
It is a real zero to hero story. If you even needed an example of what hard work and stubborn willpower can bring you look no further than this 33-year-old singer songwriter.
So almost a year ago I bought two tickets and had almost forgotten about them. “Can you buy tickets on the door?” asked the taxi driver who picked us up from the airport. Clearly not a Sheeran fan (which he confirmed by calling him Big Bird) he was shocked when I told him when I actually got them. That taxi driver was, as it turned out, the only island of negativity in the whole weekend.
People came from all over Europe, and the world. I am pretty sure that Slovenia was completely empty for that Saturday.
Mr and Mrs in Zagreb - Photo - Mark Thomas
Zagreb normally in August is a ghost town and for good reason. It feels like you are walking around in a microwave. Traffic less roads, cafés and restaurants barren, more Nepalese food delivery riders than citizens and hotels pumping out special offers to drum up some trade. One man, one lone man on a 360 degree revolving stage with a guitar in his hands changed all that.
“I drove this English family to all sorts of hotels, motels and rooms, but everyone said we were mad, Zagreb is fully booked,” said the chatty taxi driver on the way back to the airport. “In the end I dropped them off at a bus stop, I only hope they didn’t sleep by the River Sava,” he chuckled.
The Sheeran economic effect is massive.
One of his recent concerts in Jakarta is reported to have an impact to the tune of $6 million. Research shows that for every 10,000 people, or Sheerios as they are known, at his concert 1.2 million euro is injected back into the local economy. 70,000 people in Zagreb, do the mathematics! Maybe that’s why this tour is called the mathematics tour…only joking.
Before the concert I was thinking. Why couldn’t Dubrovnik organise something similar? I was given hope by seeing that he had two dates in Cyprus on his tour. But after the concert, that thought had vaporised into the Zagreb night sky. “Not on this scale, not even close,” I commented to my wife as we followed the river of fans flooding the streets after the concert. “We don’t even have an outside space big enough for anything like this,” I said to myself in the crowds.
However, in a city that hosts millions of international tourists every year we could aim a little (or lot) lower and think of holding a concert with an international artist. Just an idea. Or am I, to quote Ed, “thinking out loud!”
