I was at a loss for words. Luckily, the hashtag says it all.

Thursday night, my roommate and I were lucky enough to attend the Ed Sheeran concert in Charlotte, NC, at the Time Warner Cable Arena, where we sat six rows away from the stage.

I repeat SIX ROWS, and it was, beyond a doubt, the greatest concert I have ever attended.  So many emotions, so many feelings, and so much fangirling. This is my attempt to describe five stages of an Ed Sheeran concert.

Nervous Excitement

You’re standing in line hours before the show even starts because you did your hair and makeup in a frenzy.  Minutes feel like hours as you anticipate the doors of the arena opening, and when they do, you surge forward, mentally repeating “omg” because you’re about to see ED SHEERAN. You scramble to your seats and wait patiently with butterflies in your stomach. 

Weariness

Once the nervous excitement has subsided a bit, you realize that there are still two hours until the concert actually starts. Time creeps by slowly and you start to feel just how tired you are. People begin to annoy you and you question why you came so early to the venue in the first place. The only respite from this phase is when the opening band finally starts, which means IT IS ALMOST TIME FOR ED. 

Euphoria

With the opening band done, you wait in silence.  All the nerves in your body are tingling and you think “this is it” as you anticipate Ed coming on stage. He walks out of the back of the stage in a cloud of smoke, picks up a guitar, starts singing, and you scream like you have never screamed before. You belt out the words to every song, dance like nobody is watching, and even shed a tear or two when his angelic self croons some of the sadder songs. The next two hours fly by and before you know it, he’s singing his encore and you never want it to end. 

Obsession

After having left the concert, it is all you can talk about: what songs he performed, which ones he did not perform, how attractive he looked, how his voice made you swoon, how literally everything about it was perfect.  You go back to the hotel you’re staying in and play his album on repeat until three in the morning when you finally realize you have to sleep at some point. 

Mesmerization

The aftermath of the concert left you in a daze.  You still can’t believe how lucky you were to have witnessed the magic that is an Ed Sheeran concert.  You repeatedly watch the videos you took of him, telling anybody that will listen about how jaw-droppingly amazing of a night it was. After a couple of days, you finally calm down and store that show in your memory as the greatest concert you’ve ever attended.