Photo: Daniel Quesada
If we’ve learned anything from years of exposure to Hollywood storytelling, we know that strong-hearted protagonists always win. We know that they have to win for the ‘greater-good’ but we never question why they have to win and why we want them to.
These were the exact thoughts that dominated my conscious as 22-year-old George Ezra met raucous applause as he stepped justly on stage.
Dressed modestly in a black t-shirt, Ezra is accompanied with a no frills stage setup, bar the suitcases he’s using as a water stand, but we can forgive the twee-ness on the basis of his record’s thematic continuity.
Regardless of age or creed, people gravitate to Ezra - as is immediately clear when the first few strums of ‘Cassy O’ reverberate through our frontal lobes.
The bigger singles like the aforementioned ode to digital time-telling and ‘Budapest’, for all their adoring charm, feel assured but worn out. They fit the crowd like a glove, elevating £9 cups of wine ceremoniously but fail to match the intensity of the deeper cuts.
Having seen Ezra perform previously without his band, one notices a few distinctive differences - all for the better. The added percussion and bass give all the songs a greater manoeuvrability within the crowds. Dynamic shifts are utilised in almost every song because, with this many shows under his belt, the man knows how to exploit the peaks and troughs of an audience’s attention span.
On tracks like ‘Song 6’, the extra guitar work gives a duality to the whole performance, pitting Ezra’s baritone vocals and open chords with higher, more spritely guitar lines. It’s a small touch but gives a greater dimension to a performance that runs the risk of becoming stale without gradual tonal tweaks.
Unfortunately, the crowd often lose their engrossment out of the realm of the choruses and become completely unsettled when Ezra treats us to a rare cover of Dylan’s ‘Girl From The North Country’. The mumble of disinterested punters rises above Ezra paying respect to the master he owes most of his talent to, and this seems to be the significant take-away from most of the night’s proceedings.
During an incredibly brooding and gritty performance of ‘Did You Hear The Rain?’, Ezra hollows himself out for us. Pouring his entire soul on stage inspiring sing-a-longs, yes, but to a greater extend, reverence.
The song draws to a close and applause is, rightly, given. As Ezra exits stage right, ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ by Nina Simone comes through the PA. Another instance of a classic songwriter that is completely ignored by the quickly evacuating crowd. Only a few of us are left waltzing among the minefield of crushed beer bottles because that’s maybe a representation of who came to see George Ezra tonight.
His popularity can be quantified by two understandings of his character. Either an artist loved unconditionally for his knack for choruses or an artist who owes so much to where his sound comes from but will never be appreciated entirely for that fact.
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