Ed Sheeran performs atop bar at Nashville's Tootsie's Orchid Lounge
Grammy-winning and multi-platinum-selling vocalist Ed Sheeran continues in a tradition of nights spent parting in Nashville — this time at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge.
Ed Sheeran wasn't at Buckingham Palace on Saturday evening. No, he was on Lower Broadway at Music City's Tootsie's Orchid Lounge.
If you were in downtown Nashville on the corner of Broadway and John Lewis Way, you too could have witnessed the "Shape Of You" and "Thinking Out Loud" vocalist, clad in a bachelorette's pink cowboy hat, performing impromptu on top of the first level's bar.
Tootsie's posted via social media, "If you're not at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge right now… you should be! Ed Sheeran casually singing on the bar."
Ed Sheeran's Nashville connections
Sheeran's not unfamiliar with nights out in Nashville.
For the past decade, the 34-year-old Grammy-winning member of the Order of the British Empire, has maintained a connection to Music City, whether residing here during album recording cycles or headlining sold-out shows at the Ryman Auditorium and Nissan Stadium.
In 2013, Sheeran, then 22, offered to the BBC that the city's ability to blend "music, countryside and a relaxed atmosphere" with "very, very nice people" and a lack of "paparazzi on the lookout for celebrities" was attractive to him.
In July 2023, he visited Santa's Pub, where he reveled with customers. He said he was a longtime fan of the perpetually Christmas-decorated dive bar in the shadow of Geodis Park in Nashville's Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood.
"Celebrating breaking the attendance record at Nissan stadium in Nashville tonight at Santas pub. When I lived here this was the spot and it still is. Karaoke caravan and cheap beer, what's not to love," he wrote on social media.
Ed Sheeran's 2023 Nashville concerts
In 2023, Sheeran performed an intimate set at the Ryman Auditorium, followed by a "Mathematics" tour date at Nissan Stadium that drew an estimated 73,000 concertgoers to the stadium, a single-night attendance record, per organizers.
"Nashville, this feels like a homecoming show. I'm so glad to be back," the performer stated at the NFL's Tennessee Titans home.
A review of the concert in The Tennessean described the show: "Captivating the audience as a one-man entertainer, building songs on a loop pedal with manic energy and methodical concentration, Sheeran played solo much of the night, like on crowd-pleasing 2021 number 'Shivers,' throwback single 'The A Team,' the frantic late-show romp Bloodstream' and 2011's 'Give Me Love' which included a call-and-response singalong that filled the stadium concourse and likely spilled into the neighboring parking lots."