This is a sight that’s pretty hard to imagine now. Ed Sheeran casually giving a one-man acoustic concert on a boat floating through a busy canal, performing “Small Bump.” People out on walks look at him with interest. But no one seems to recognize him, as this was pre-fame Ed Sheeran at just 20 years old. If only those people knew what a legend they were seeing in front of them, giving them a free concert they’d pay hundreds or thousands for nowadays.
Just a few months after this, he’d drop his debut album and become the biggest name in English pop for a generation. But fans can’t seem to stop coming back to this humble performance that showed off Ed’s incredible talent before the world knew about it. It’s pretty wild to see that he came fully formed even at this early stage – the voice, musicianship, songwriting, and presence were all there, even at his young age. The Music Man has to say we love seeing this little document of English pop history in the making!
Ed dropped two videos from the canal boat session, singing “The A Team” and “Small Bump.” The videos became his first ever viral public performances. Viewers commented on how weird it was seeing him go unrecognised and added comments such as “I kinda miss this. When almost no one knew who he was. He felt like our little secret” and “No effects, no Auto-Tune, nothing fancy, just him and a guitar, and it’s better than 99% of the music on the radio these days.”
Ed Sheeran released his acoustic boat performance of “The A Team” on May 10, 2011, and then followed it up with “Small Bump” on July 5, 2011. Both videos went super viral, with “The A Team” drawing 17.4 million views. These two songs are perfect representations of what was so great about Ed’s songwriting during this era. He covers such deep and personal topics, going places where many songwriters would fear to tread.
The people watching Ed’s acoustic boat jam might not have known the songs, but they surely would just a few months later. Ed released “The A Team” and “Small Bump” as his first and fifth singles respectively on his debut album +. The album dropped on September 9, 2011. It turned Ed into a superstar overnight, going triple Platinum in the US and nine-times Platinum in the UK. Ed recreated his famous boat sessions in 2024, performing a medley of songs from + while promoting his retrospective Mathematics tour. The Music Man readers might not be surprised to hear that the second time around, Ed was recognized by passersby.