“Come in, come in! Take a seat. Here, do you want a glass of water? Take anything you want from the table over there. How are you today?”

George Ezra is positively beaming when Hot Press enters a quiet room in the Hilton Hotel for a chat. There doesn’t seem to be much occasion for it; after all, it’s a drab day in Dublin and I’m one of the many journalists he’ll have to meet this afternoon before his headline performance in front of one of his toughest crowds yet – the dreaded student rabble at the Trinity Ball. But none of that has rubbed off on the man himself – George Ezra, it seems, never needs an excuse to be happy.

Four years ago, the singer rose to prominence with his debut album, Wanted On Voyage. A record of rousing folk-blues, sung with a voice all the more exciting because it was steeped in Deep Southern soul, it was the last thing you’d expect from a man from middle England. Naturally, it became the third-best selling album in the UK in 2014, and led thousands of people to fall in love with a statuesque young man from Hertfordshire.