Ed Sheeran to play new album in full at London Royal Albert Hall gigs

8 September, 2023

Ed Sheeran has announced two special gigs at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where he’ll play his new album ‘Autumn Variations’ in full.

Sheeran will release his second new album of 2023 on September 29 via his own Gingerbread Man Records and. Like May LP ‘Subtract’, it was produced by The National‘s Aaron Dessner.

The shows will take place on November 18-19, and see Sheeran performing with a live band and string section.

Fans who pre-order ‘Autumn Variations’ can access pre-sale tickets from now until 3pm BST on September 13, with another pre-sale then beginning at 9am local time on September 14.

General sale tickets will then go on sale at 9am on September 15. You can buy your tickets here.

Discussing the new album in a press release, Sheeran said: “Last autumn, I found that my friends and I were going through so many life changes. After the heat of the summer, everything either calmed, settled, fell apart, came to a head or imploded.

“When I went through a difficult time at the start of last year, writing songs helped me understand my feelings and come to terms with what was going on, and when I learned about my friend’s different situations, I wrote songs, some from their perspectives, some from mine, to capture how they and I viewed the world at that time. There were highs of falling in love and new friendships among lows of heartbreak, depression, loneliness and confusion.”

He added: “My dad and brother told me about a composer called Elgar, who composed ‘Enigma Variations’, where each of the 14 compositions were about a different one of his friends. This is what inspired me to make this album. When I recorded ‘Subtract’ with Aaron Dessner, we clicked immediately. We wrote and recorded non-stop and this album was born out of that partnership. I feel he has captured the feeling of autumn so wonderfully in his sonics and I hope everyone loves it as much as I do.”

Sheeran is currently on the North American leg of his ‘+ – = ÷ x Tour’ (‘Mathematics’ tour)‘, and brought out Macklemore for a performance of ‘Can’t Hold Us’ at his Seattle show last month.

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