There are world tours, and then there are world tours. Ed Sheeran’s “Divide” tour was one of the latter.
He played 260 shows in 43 countries during the two-year marathon. He finished the tour at Chantry Park in Ipswich, England on Aug. 26,2019.
The tour set record after record. 8.9 million people saw the concerts. It grossed $776.2 million.
Sheeran sold 300,000 tickets in one day for seven concerts in Ireland. He sold 710,000 tickets in a single day for concerts in Australia and New Zealand. He kept adding show after show to meet the demand.
Sheeran made some big bucks from the tour. He paid himself 73.4 million pounds in 2019, the equivalent to $89.4 million, according to the Daily Mail. Overall, he made about 90 million pounds, the equivalent of $109.5 million.
“This is my last gig for probably about 18 months,” he told the audience at his final 2019 concert.
The coronavirus pandemic extended his vacation by another 18 months.
He began his fourth world tour, “Mathematics,” this year. So far, he has 74 shows scheduled.
Our Song of the Day, "Thinking Out Loud" is one of the songs that made him a worldwide pop star. He recorded the song for his second album "Multiply" and released it as a single in 2014. He wrote the song with Irish songwriter Amy Wedge. He said it took 20 minutes to write.
The theme was everlasting love. The lyrics were inspired by his then-girlfriend Athina Andrelos.
The song became a blockbuster. It reached number two in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
It went to number one in England and 14 other countries. It was the first song in England to stay in the Top 40 for an entire year.
Fridays are when we enjoy a new weekly series that's part history, part trivia, and ALL music. The series features selections from former News-Press editor Sheldon Zoldan's '"Song of the Day." The initiative began as a daily lockdown project on Facebook at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, through which Zoldan highlights how every aspect of life has a connection through music.
