The Lovely Eggs

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER-

The Lovely Eggs return nearly 12 months to the day after they played one of their largest headline gigs to date at Manchester’s Gorilla. I was fortunate to be there last time as a paying punter and had jumped at the chance this time to review them on their return to the city. The only question on my mind was would they be as good as last time.

Prior to their set I catch supporting Welsh wizards Seazoo, who delight the audience with their skewed pop riffs. They are definitely ones to watch with their charming fuzzed up tunes punctuated by glorious dollops of retro keys and sonic effects. Lyrically they reminded me of prime Gorky’s with their singer Ben Trows having a Euros Child tilt to his vocals which all adds to their melodic charm. On consulting Google post gig, they’ve got an album due in November and I for one will be definitely checking this out.

So to the main act and The Lovely Eggs arrive on stage complete in matching red ponchos and glitter make-up. To say they start with a flourish is an understatement as they storm through their opening five songs breathlessly without missing a beat. Rifling through ‘Food’, new single ‘I Shouldn’t Have Said That’, ‘Slug Graveyard’ in which Holly ad libs the lyrics to an ode to Mancunians getting drunk post-work on a Friday night, and the awesome ‘Drug Braggin’, all are delivered with mighty aplomb.

In 6Music DJ Stuart Maconie’s book The Pie at Night: In Search of the North at Play, Maconie refers to the northern love of a good night, of getting “off your head” and living for the weekend. The Lovely Eggs exemplify this attitude and often refer to this during the night, with Holly at one point acknowledging a heckle by saying that she loves a good drunken troublemaker and that they’re their type of people.

The storming set continues throughout the night with Holly pulling off rock star guitar poses and Dave’s no nonsense pummelling drums showing the duo in top notch form. For their anthem ‘Fuck It’ they invite audience members on stage to film the crowd which results in a rousing sing song with the audience a sea of arms and Fuck It merch scarves all waving in the air. To say that they matched their set from the previous year would be an injustice as they smash it and leave the stage with the crowd enthralled, all cheering to the glorious technicolour northern riotous fun that is The Lovely Eggs.

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Jonathan Roby

Overgrown indie kid with a penchant for americana, psych and weird folk.