大象传媒

Six years ago, if you walked past Glasto's tiny Croissant Neuf stage, you might have noticed a heavily-tattooed, 20-year-old strumming a guitar and quickly jogged on. But today everyone wants to say, "I was there", as that young artist is no longer the unknown Ed Sheeran, he's the world-owning Ed Sheeran: the man behind some of the biggest hits of recent years, friend of everyone from Pharrell to Taylor Swift, and even star of Game of Thrones. Ed Sheeran could literally not be a bigger star, and yet, tonight, he's facing the hardest task of his life. Can Ed beat Radiohead and Foo Fighters to conquer Glasto? It'll be some achievement given how far he's come:

In 2011, Sheeran walked out to play his Glasto debut on, er, the solar-power Croissant Neuf stage! It's a Glasto venue normally home to educational talks about green living and Ed was wearing a ropey blue jumper seemingly to fit in with the environmentalist vibes. But as soon as he started slapping his guitar to tap out the beat for Grade 8, the screams started - from both men and women - and a star was born.

The same year, Ed was fresh off his debut Top 10 hit, The A Team, so was also asked to headline the 大象传媒 Introducing stage. Again, it was just him and a guitar - no fireworks, no special guests, no celebrity mates. And yet he had everyone transfixed. A boy from Halifax was entertaining thousands, which is a sentence not many people have ever typed.

Ed recently told Radio 1's Annie Mac that his dad blagged his way into see his Glasto debut. He didn't have a ticket or any ID, but "[just] wandered in backstage, noticeably no wristband, no one chaperoning him. He just walked from the outside of the festival, said, 'I'm Ed's dad', and managed to get in. He could have been anyone!"

In 2014, Ed was back and deservedly booked for the Pyramid Stage having sold over four million copies of his debut album, +, and with Sing and Thinking Out Loud just out - proper crowd pleasers that no one can stop themselves from singing. But there was a chance everything could go wrong that day as he had to perform right after rhinetsone-encrusted country legend Dolly Parton - a woman who had just delivered one of the GREATEST sets Glastonbury had ever seen. It was an act that was surely impossible to follow. So what did Ed do? Er, he just did what he always does: walked out, humbly, in jeans and a button-down shirt and started strumming. As :

"The unassuming singer-songwriter wins over the crowd with one call-and-response chorus after the next, and a whole lot of singalongs."

No Dolly; no problem.

He even dropped into the 大象传媒 to play an intimate Thinking Out Loud that day too:

So now he's made his journey to headliner what can Ed do to wow the crowd - and the millions watching on TV worldwide. Ed told Annie Mac he has "balls of steel" on stage so won't be nervous about playing the biggest gig of his career. In fact, he's going to do it alone. When Annie asked if he was planning any guests - maybe bring out Stormzy for Shape of You - Ed shockingly said no. :(

"But Beoga - who are the Irish band that play on Galway Girl - well, Northern Irish - they're playing on Sunday [too], so I might get them up and have a bit of a jam."

You have been warned!

"I've done that before [at Glasto]. It's really easy to get down, but really hard to get up and then you're live on TV sort of trying to climb up really unceremoniously," he told Annie Mac in the same interview. He told her he is going to swear, though! "I might swear in the set," Ed said. "But I think the 大象传媒 do this thing on TV where instead of muting the word they mute it for 30 seconds. Mate, what is going on? Just do it for five seconds. I'm not going to swear through the whole gig!"

And look, LOADS of people already excited:

Well, maybe not everyone!