Ed revealed he knew about the issues and thanked his fans for turning up and standing in the rain.
“I know how much effort everyone here has gone to, to come here tonight,” he said. “I know public transport has been difficult, thank you so much for going through all the effort to come and see me.”
Before the show started, a 10-minute countdown appeared on the centre stage, which was surrounded by six huge guitar pick screens.
The singer appeared with his guitar wearing a t-shirt reading “Glasgow” as the stage surround lifted up. He welcomed the crowd before bursting into song.
Throughout his set, he got his fans involved by singing along with him and asking them to light up the stadium with their phones during “The A Team”.
He revealed all music heard on the night was completely live, with no backing track.
Before playing his popular tune “A Castle on the Hill”, Ed told the crowd: “Hampden I know how mental a Glaswegian crowd can get, it’s always one of my favourite places to come on tour.
“I know you guys look on stage and you see an acoustic guitar, and yes there will be some slow songs but I love seeing stadiums bounce. I want to see you jumping and screaming the chorus.”
Glasgow, that was insane! pic.twitter.com/nZuCII5gMK
— Ed Sheeran HQ (@edsheeran) June 16, 2022
The famous star spoke to his fans throughout the night, including telling them he first played in Scotland in 2007 when he was 16, and revealing how he wanted to become a singer after going to a Damien Rice concert.
He said: “I saw a man on stage with an acoustic guitar singing songs that he’d written, playing to an audience, captivating them. I said to myself ‘that is what I want to do when I grow up’.
“Once I finished my GCSE’s it was a choice whether to stay on for A-Levels and get a job or go and be a singer-songwriter, so I looked at what all the people I admired had done, they’d all moved to London and started off doing open mic nights and stuff like that.
“So, when I was 17, I moved to London and started sofa surfing, and I booked myself in as many open mic nights I could. I remember the very first one I played five songs or something and the next person went on and they were so much better than me.
“It was that first instance I was like ‘oh, maybe this is going to be harder than I thought’.”
Over the next few years, Ed tried to get signed by a label, but it didn’t work out.
“I thought maybe I’m not going to be a singer-songwriter, but there’s a lot of singer-songwriters I’ve known that have transitioned into being very successful songwriters for other people,” he said.
“So, I started trying to get songs on other people’s albums and eventually I got a song on Olly Murs’ first album. It was my first experience of success and I thought ‘oh okay, maybe I am a songwriter,’ and from there I sort of built confidence and started writing more interesting songs like ‘Lego House’.
“I love writing songs, I write many, many songs a week. I give them to people, I write for people, I write for myself. Songs come out that other people sing that I’ve written, and you’ll just never hear them, and sometimes they do sort of well, and sometimes, a song will come out a be a huge global hit, so this is a song I wrote in 2015.”
Ed started performing the popular song “Love Yourself”, which was recorded by Justin Bieber.
He also performed many of his own hits including “Galway Girl”, “Thinking Out Loud”, “Shivers”, and “Overpass Graffiti”.
He told Hampden: “A Glaswegian audience should just sound loud, it shouldn’t sound beautiful, it shouldn’t sound in tune, it should just sound loud.”
Throughout the show, the star made full use of the stage by standing on a piece of rotating equipment.
“Shape of You”, “Bad Habits” and “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You”, made up the encore. Ed disappeared under the stage before returning to loud cheers as he sported a Scotland football top.
A fireworks display lit up the sky as the singer said goodbye.
“It’s no nice to be back,” he said. “Please get home safe and please be respectful on your way home.”