Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds 31st May 2025
There is a lot to love about The Lovely Eggs. For a start, you’ll only see them in school holidays. And they have a personal link to the audience; Holly Ross sharing that her Mum calls their tours holidays (“are you having a nice holiday, love?”). And David Blackwell comments that their son said, “Daddy, after every song you said ‘cheers’”. That’s because Holly is the chatty one, full of stories and reaction to the audience – at one point she points out an air drummer and thanks him – a gig is about them watching us, not the other way round, she says.
From psychedelia to punk to fuzzed up rock to ballads the set is varied and the duo always so real that we take them to our hearts. Ranging across the band’s twenty-year history, there are profound ballads like ‘I Am Gaia’, songs of everyday life and love in ‘Nothing / Everything’, psychedelic fun in ‘Wiggy Giggy”, fuzzy rock in “I Don’t Fucking Know What I’m Gonna Do” and the punky joy of ‘Fuck It’. Flying high above them all is crowd favourite, ‘Don’t Look At Me’ (“look at her with her washing line smile, look at him with his sausage roll thumbs”).
David smiles and pounds those drums while Holly peers out from the fringe or shakes her head violently or winds herself up into a heron pose, left leg wrapped up next to her guitar. Beer and chat flow freely and we are flattered to hear our loud Northern reaction makes them feel like home. And we’re saddened to hear the band focused on music over running a successful business and didn’t get any more “Fuck It” scarves made up for the tour; Holly promises some for the 20th anniversary October Leeds gig at The Brudenell (tickets on sale now). I’m hoping we get to hear the glorious ‘Death Grip Kids’ then too.
A national treasure, The Lovely Eggs embody all the best values of DIY music with honesty, directness, persistence and fun.
https://www.vanguard-online.co.uk/the-lovely-eggs-this-is-eggland/