Eminem joins Ed Sheeran on stage at Ford Field concert

Welp, Royal Oak didn't get that on Friday night.

Ed Sheeran brought out Eminem for a surprise two song performance during his Ford Field concert on Saturday night, which followed Sheeran's quiet, intimate performance Friday night at the Royal Oak Music Theatre.

A hoodie-clad Eminem popped up and joined Sheeran during an already-in-progress rendition of "Lose Yourself," picking up the words from Sheeran and rattling the stunned audience.

"Detroit," Eminem yelled to the crowd of around 65,000 fans. "Stand up!"

They were already standing, cheering on the hometown hero and collectively freaking out.

"Can I just say one thing?" Sheeran asked the screaming crowd after the pair finished "Lose Yourself," as he pointed toward Eminem. "He was gonna come on and do one song, and I said, 'you can't come on in Detroit and just do one song.' Do you want another song?"

The pair then rolled into a quickie duet on Em's 2000 smash "Stan," with Sheeran playing the role of Dido.

"Thank you Ed," Em said at the end of his brief guest stint. "I appreciate you Detroit. I love you."

He slapped hands with Sheeran, they embraced, and Em raised his fist to the crowd as he was lowered beneath the stage.

The cameo came late in Sheeran's two-hour, 20 minute performance, and left the crowd gasping.

It was Eminem's first public appearance since he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November, and his first on-stage pop-up in Detroit since he joined Drake on stage at Joe Louis Arena in 2016. Eminem hasn't performed a concert in Detroit since he played two shows with Rihanna at Comerica Park in 2014.

Rumors of Eminem's eminent appearance circulated among fans throughout the day leading up to the concert, the kind of "you think Eminem's gonna show up?" questions that frequently accompany big Detroit concerts.

Em and Ed are semi-frequent collaborators: Sheeran appeared on the rap superstar's 2017 single "River" and his 2020 song "Those Kinda Nights," and Eminem appeared, along with 50 Cent, on Sheeran's track "Remember the Name," from the English singer's 2019 album "No. 6 Collaborations Project."

Sheeran spoke of his Eminem fandom both Friday night and prior to Em's appearance on Saturday. He also said he ate at Mom's Spaghetti, Eminem's downtown Detroit spaghetti spot, for lunch prior to the show.

"How do you follow that?" an exasperated Sheeran asked after Em exited the stage. "I don't know about you, but, like, that was pretty awesome."

The show indeed went on, but Sheeran wasn't done honoring Em: during the show's encore, he sported a Detroit Lions jersey, No. 5, with Mathers on the back.

The demographics of the concert — a lot of kids, a lot of families — meant that for many, it was their first glimpse of Eminem in-person. For some, it may have been their first big concert experience period, and it's going to be a hard one to live up to.

The Eminem surprise was a mega moment for Sheeran, who previously played Ford Field in 2018, and who started his Detroit career opening for alt-rockers Snow Patrol in 2012 at the nearby Fillmore Detroit. It was the cherry on top of a rock steady 27-song performance that saw him playing in-the-round in the center of the stadium, often by himself, with only the aid of his guitar and the sound loop pedals at his feet.

The production was massive, with the large stage at the center of the stadium surrounded by six huge spires, each with a large video screen in the shape of a guitar pick attached. The set up resembled the stage for U2's massive 360° Tour, if it had somehow been flipped upside down.

But Sheeran, 32, was never overwhelmed by the staging, and the dynamo performer is perfectly comfortable holding court in front of tens of thousands of fans and keeping their attention.

He often performed on a riser in the middle of the round stage and he frequently hit the stage's perimeter, which rotated in a circle. He gave all sides of the stadium equal love, and moved around so much he easily got in his day's 10,000 steps.

Where Friday's concert focused squarely on Sheeran's latest album "-," or "Subtract," Saturday's show mixed up songs from throughout his career, and centered on crowd pleasers and singalongs. Pyrotechnics exploded in the air and bursts of fire shot up from the stage, a rock production that nonetheless complimented Sheeran's smooth, guitar-based pop sound.

"Detroit, how are you feeling?" Sheeran asked early in the show, raising his guitar above his head after running in circles around the stage during "Blow." "I'm going to play some songs that hopefully you know, and if you don't know them, it's going to be a long two and a half hours for you."

He was joined on several songs by a five piece band, which was tucked away at the corners of the stage, but mostly it was just himself, and as is his custom, he gave the audience a quickie lesson in looping, showing how he created live samples in the moment that he used as his backing tracks.

It's his signature performing style, and it's aided him well since his breakthrough with his 2011 single, "The A Team." Sheeran is one of the streaming era's most popular artists: he's currently Spotify's No. 3 artist in the world, behind only the Weeknd and Taylor Swift, and he's scored 11 songs that have crossed the streaming service's 1 billion streams marker.

On Saturday, new album tracks like "Eyes Closed" and "Boat" rubbed up nicely against favorites like "Castle on the Hill" and "Thinking out Loud," and a late-show stretch of songs — introduced as "the songs your grandmother knows" — included "Thinking Out Loud" and "Love Yourself," the Sheeran-penned 2015 Justin Bieber single. (It's not a cover if you wrote it yourself.)

High energy takes on "Shape of You" and "Bad Habits" closed the night, as fans continued to buzz about the Eminem appearance they had bragging rights to as they filed out of the venue and onto the street.

Official attendance figures weren't available, but Saturday's concert will likely top out as the second largest show in Ford Field's 21-year history, after Garth Brooks' Feb. 2020 blowout, which unfolded in front of 70,000 fans.

That one, though, didn't have Eminem.

agraham@detroitnews.com