Richard Hogan: Fellow music snobs, I saw Ed Sheeran in concert and I liked it

"...he stood in the judgemental corner of my mind for the last 11 years. Cloyingly sweet, derivative, and a little maudlin. But songs like Thinking Out Loud and Love Yourself made me take notice."

Ed Sheeran on stage during the last of his three Cork concerts at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Picture Dan Linehan

There is something special about a singer-songwriter. Standing solitary on a stage, strumming our pain with their fingers, singing our lived experience with their words, as the song goes. It is a lonely artistic endeavour, like the blacksmith who expends himself in shape and music to hammer something imagined into life.

Music is a door into the light. And we have been in the dark for too many years now. So, the Ed Sheeran concert in Croke Park last Saturday was like an antidote to the chaos and pain we have all experienced, recently.