On the evening of Friday, 20th February I had the
pleasure of sharing my evening with George Ezra – and almost 5,000 other people…
THE SUPPORT
Supporting Ezra on his tour is Raleigh Ritchie. Beautiful
vocals accompanied by an amazing band had done a very good job getting the
crowd pumped for the next couple of hours ahead. At times, he was a tad over enthusiastic,
but it was great to see such energy on stage being passed on to the crowd.
However, throughout his set people were commenting on how ‘un-George Ezra’ he
is, and I agree, he is probably near the opposite of Ezra. But where does it
say the support needs to be the same as the headliner? It was nice to have some
variation to the evening listening to something I wouldn’t usually listen to.
In my eyes the
support acts main job, along with promoting their own music, is to get the
crowed buzzed for the headliner, and Raleigh Ritchie completed that well.
GEORGE EZRA
The backdrop of the stage consisted of ‘EZRA’ lit up, a pile
of beige, tattered suitcases beside a lone microphone and the band set up
behind. ‘Suitcases?’ you might think, but this is a clear link to his debut
album ‘Wanted On Voyage’ with a collection of songs, which he told us he wrote
when travelling round Europe (hence the names: ‘Barcelona’, ‘Budapest’ etc.).
The suitcases was accompanied by bottles of water and a nice mug of tea(?), which
Ezra seemed to enjoy throughout the night.
 |
| During 'Spectacular Rival'. |
Along came 9:30, and the crowd was beginning to get a bit
restless. Soon enough, a screaming crowed welcomed Ezra. Starting up the night with the popular, upbeat ‘Cassy
O’. He also sang an old classic ‘Benjamin Twine’ taken from his first EP ‘Did
You Hear the Rain?’ this song made my night. The star struck crowd screaming at
the top of their voices along with him. The band which accompanied him was
flawless, interacting with the crowd throughout by clapping along to Ezra.
However, the band is incomparable to Ezra’s beautiful baritone vocals, which
(weirdly) I can only describe as thick dripping honey? Stunning.
If someone asked me what George Ezra is like on stage, if he
is relaxed, if he is shy, if he is bubbly? I’d describe him as his twitter. His
stage presence was like nothing I have seen before, he was funny and
interacting with the crowd. ‘Love that!’ he’d say in the middle of a song, to
people waving their arms, high in the air, to the beat. Ezra also gave the obligatory ‘Thanks
for coming speech’, but he added a bit more emotion than a simple thank you; he
explained how he come to Brixton Academy when he was 14 or 15 and how much of
an amazing venue it is, and that he is happy that he is playing in it today. This
shows how much he doesn’t take his following for granted.
After the crowd pleaser's of ‘Listen to the Man’ and ‘Blame
it on me’, Ezra’s band departed and stood in front of us was just a man attached to his guitar. He covered the beautiful Bob Dylan song ‘Girl from the North Country’, which
grabbed the audience’s attention with the beauty of this cover.
After his acoustic set, he played more songs from his album –
and along came Budapest. You can tell he gave it his all in this well-known
and to be quite honest, a much overplayed song. In return though, the audience
gave it their all; singing along, waving their arms high in the air and
clapping along. After completing this song, Ezra and his band had a casual ‘selfie’
taken with 5,000 people in the background. Then they all left the stage, leaving the crowd thirsty for more.
After a few minutes of the crowd screaming, Ezra happily trotted on stage with a new mug of drink, and placed it on the pile of suitcases. In his encore he played three more songs, closing the night with ‘Did You Hear the Rain?’ The silent crowd was soon accompanied by a smooth baritone vocal, opening the song. Everyone joined in, then came along a heavy guitar solo, which seemed Ezra just loses himself in, showing his passion for what he does… What a way to close the show.
Setlist and rating:
Cassy O 8/10
Listen to the Man 7/10
Benjamin Twine 9/10
Blame it on Me 8/10
Barcelona 7/10
Over the Creek (acoustic) 7/10
Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan cover, acoustic) 9/10
Leaving it up to you (acoustic) 9/10
Stand by your Gun 7/10
I Try (Macy Gray cover) 8/10
Breakaway 8/10
Spectacular Rival 7/10
Budapest 9/10
Blind man in Amsterdam (encore) 7/10
Song 6 (encore) 8/10
Did you hear the Rain? (encore) 10/10
