A WHOLE LOAD OF FUN: GEORGE EZRA CONCERT REVIEW

Last night (11th March 2019), I went and saw George Ezra at the Brighton Centre. The thing is about the Brighton Centre, is it's a very odd size. It's not quite small enough to seem like a small venue but not quite big enough for a real arena atmosphere. Whenever I've been there, the atmosphere has just been a little bit odd, no matter how incredible the show. I thought I'd just send that out as a PSA, as the atmosphere can really make or break a show so I might not mention it as much in this review as it was a little bit here and there.

Now, I normally go to concerts for people that I've supported for years to the point where I almost know their breathing patterns in their songs and I know what to expect from a gig of theirs. However, deciding to see George Ezra was a little bit of a spur of the moment thing that was a gift for my dad's birthday. Obviously, I know the hits that have been played (and played and played) on the radio, but other than that I had pretty much no idea what was coming.

THE OPENING ACT

The opening act for Ezra's UK tour is Sigrid, who is someone else you probably don't know by name but would recognise a few of her songs from radio play (Strangers being the main one). Her set was simple but I was pleasantly surprised. She had a really great vibe going for her and songs that made you want to dance a little and got everyone warmed up, which is exactly the purpose of an opening act! Her voice live very much matched the songs I've heard on the radio and was even better in some circumstances, which really is the ideal situation. Her sound was very different to the sound of George Ezra, but it made for something different than I was expecting. Sigrid was really great and I'll definitely be checking out her new album which was released this week.

GEORGE EZRA

George Ezra and his band (consisting of guitarists, drummers, keyboardists, various percussion, two trumpets, and a saxophone) came on to the chilled out tune of Don't Matter Now. It wasn't the most breathtaking of openings but it did set a happy tone for the night. Most of George Ezra's music is happy-go-lucky songs that just make you feel good when you listen to them, and Don't Matter Now is the epitome of this so, admitedly, it makes sense to open to it.

The first thing I was shocked by was how similar Ezra's live voice sounds to his recorded one. I could have closed my eyes and assumed that the tracks were just playing on Spotify really loudly. Ezra isn't known for his vocal loop-de-loops so it's understandable there's not much variation from the recorded version but honestly, the similarity was outstandingly impressive. Too many times I've seena rtists not do incredible songs justice just because they can't quite get the vocals live, but not here.

I was also pleasently surprised by the amount of variation. There was upbeat tracks with everyone dancing and singing along, much like I expected, like Pretty Shining People. However, one of the standout tracks was Do You Hear The Rain? which is a song from Ezra's first EP which has a completely different sound. It was a lot heavier with a lot of intense guitar featuring in it (which showed off his own guitar abilities) and just had a completely different feel from everything else. Ezra's naturally gritty vocals really highlighted the intensity of the track and left me impressed and the amount of variation he had.

One of the best parts of the concert itself was not Ezra himself but his band. He made sure to showoff their talents at every point that he could, but when performing his hugely successful track Paradise the brass section really showed what they were made of and it was really good. It added a brand new dimension to the performance and made it different from any other show that I've seen. Not only this, but the band themselves seemed to be having a lot of fun, moving around the stage and encouraging the crowd to sing. George Ezra was not the only showman on that stage. Although, all the stories that Ezra told about each song made his personality shine through so he was far from overshadowed. These stories gave a lot of background to the songs and where they were written, which made it even more interesting when he eventually performed them.

Obviously, Ezra's real hit track Shotgun was left until last because that's the one everyone wants to se but it was absolutely worth it. I've never been to a show where it's seemed like everybody in the room, aged from 6 to 96, was having a really great time and singing along to their hearts contnent. Shotgun is a song that reminds everyone in the country of the incredible British summer we had last year and at that moment it felt like we were all back there. I know I wasn't going to talk about atmosphere much but shotgun really did create a great atmosphere across the room.

Overall, the entire night was a huge amount of fun and George Ezra did certainly not disappoint. I would highly recommend seeing him!

See highlights from the concert on my Instagram HERE

Written by Ruby Crowhurst.