Jess Nelson On July 4, 2026, Ed Sheeran headlined Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, with Aaron Rowe and Myles Smith opening. The last time I caught Ed Sheeran was three years ago, in 2023, when a major weather delay pushed his start time back two hours, straight to 10 p.m., and he ended up playing until midnight. Thankfully the show survived that night, but I went into this one having no idea I’d be walking into deja vu. There wasn’t a single weather warning going into the day, just a forecast full of sunshine, so the last thing on my mind was another delay.
Aaron Rowe
I’ll be honest, the heat got the better of me for most of Aaron Rowe’s set. I spent a chunk of it out in the walkways instead of my seat, just catching the buzz of the music while I cooled off, before finally making it back in to actually watch. And that’s about when things took a turn.
Almost as soon as I sat down, someone rushed onstage and pulled Aaron off, followed immediately by a weather warning, lightning this time. My stomach dropped. After three years of nervously hoping I’d never sit through another delay like 2023, here I was bracing for exactly that. It started raining not long after, and everyone crowded into the concourses under the stadium to wait it out. I couldn’t tell you how long it lasted, but eventually it let up, and I made my way back to my seat hoping Myles Smith’s set hadn’t been cut entirely, because I still needed to see him.
Myles Smith
In that moment, I was so unbelievably grateful I’d made the trip to Vail the night before to catch his full headline set, because when Myles did come out, his set had been cut short, and the storm had knocked out his band’s equipment. He played acoustic instead, which is a wild thing to witness in a stadium of that size. It’s not totally out of character for him, that’s kind of his sound anyway, but going out having prepared a full band set and pivoting to acoustic on the fly is a different thing entirely. Compared to the night before, it was missing that big, full-band punch a stadium crowd deserves. Still, I love him down so bad, and getting to watch him command a stage that size, under any circumstances, was so cool to witness.
Ed Sheeran
And then there’s Ed. I covered him three years ago too, but I was drinking back then, and if I’m honest, some of that night is a little fuzzy. I remembered having fun. I did not remember just how genuinely incredible he is live until I saw him sober this time around.
He doesn’t tour with a band. It’s just him up there, looping everything live in real time, building entire songs layer by layer in front of a full stadium. I knew that’s his whole thing going in, I’d heard about it plenty, but knowing about it and watching it happen live are two completely different experiences. If he messes up a loop, he’ll stop and restart it right there in front of everyone. It felt less like a stadium concert and more like watching someone work in the studio, except the studio process was happening live, in real time, in front of 70,000 people. As someone endlessly fascinated by how music actually gets made, watching him build a song from scratch like that was one of the coolest things I’ve seen onstage.
Since it was the Fourth of July, Ed brought it up constantly, which was honestly kind of funny given that he’s not even American. At one point it felt like he was more excited about the holiday than I was, though to be fair, given everything going on with the Trump administration right now, my own patriotism has been a little complicated lately. Ed’s clearly wasn’t. At one point he broke into a cover of “American Pie,” and afterward told the crowd it was one of his favorite moments onstage, since it’s one of the first songs he fell in love with growing up and part of what got him into music in the first place. I’m paraphrasing, since I don’t remember his exact words, but that was the gist.
Two other moments stood out. During “Camera,” he asked everyone to pull out their phones and take a photo with the flash on at a specific point in the song, rather than the usual ask to turn on your flashlight and sway it through a slow song. Because everyone’s flash went off at a slightly different second, the whole stadium ended up flickering in waves instead of holding one steady glow. In the three or four hundred shows I’ve been to, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that particular effect happen. It was stunning.
Then there was the couple. Out at his B-stage, set up in the middle of the floor, a couple was holding up a sign asking him to play a song that wasn’t on the setlist, the one they’d chosen for their first dance. He played it. They danced their first dance to Ed Sheeran, live, in front of the entire stadium, while fans filmed it and the crew put them up on the big screen. It was so cute, so wholesome, and exactly the kind of moment that makes covering shows like this worth it.
If any information in this coverage is incorrect or needs to be fixed, please email PCD Editor at jessica@postconcertdepression.com. Thank you!
Interested in purchasing photos from this coverage?
All coverage content belongs to the party covering the show and requires payment for use. If you want to use any of these photos, contact us, and we’ll connect you with the right person.
Struggling with Post Concert Depression?
Read our tips!
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
