As someone who was not blessed with height, concert seats can be a difficult situation. I am either fighting for my life to see over the tallest person I have ever seen, or I’m in the front row with the best view. With big stadium venues it’s actually pretty difficult to determine which seats are best, and a lot of the best seats are going to require me to take out another loan. Keeping all of this in mind, when my friends asked when I wanted to see Ed Sheeran at Gillette for 40 bucks, I knew to keep my seating expectations low.
Of course, I never let my seating bother me. As long as I can hear the music, I’ll figure out how to have a good time. I knew our seats would be way back in the nosebleeds at Gillette, and my thoughts were proven correct when we had to walk up what felt like 80 different flights of stairs just to get to our seats. My only thought was that if I had to go to the bathroom, it would be a whole journey just to get there. We sat in the very back row of Gillette. Not back row like there were rows behind us, but back row like I could look down through the fence behind us and see the parking lot. If you’re afraid of heights, I recommend you never sit in the upper sections in Gillette. The seats felt slanted in a way that I was afraid one gust of wind would have me meeting Ed Sheeran at the bottom of the stage.
Ed Sheeran really has his performance set-up down. John Mayer was a surprise opener since Khalid had gotten into a car accident a week before. Obviously I’m team T-Swift, but the guy is pretty talented. It’s easy to forget how good of a musician Ed Sheeran is when you hear the same two songs on the radio. He’s popular for a reason, and his ability to perform live was admirable. His stage set had so many cool features like fire shooting up around the center of it and intense light shows during certain songs. It really made it entertaining, especially since we could only see him as the size of an ant.
What was so great about our seats is that we had a bird’s-eye view of the stage. His stage was a big circle in the middle of the stadium, and the stage spun, giving everybody a little taste of Ed. John Mayer even came out during Ed’s set to perform a song together. Although he didn’t have any dramatic theatrics or dances (I can’t picture him doing that), it really was a fun experience. Seeing him constantly spinning in a circle was definitely entertaining enough to keep my attention. The lesson here is don’t let how “good” your seat is dictate your concert experience.
Can’t get enough of HC UMass Amherst? Be sure to follow us on Instagram, listen to us on Spotify, like us on Facebook, and read our latest Tweets!