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Review: The Lovely Eggs, Trinity Centre – ‘Build a life you like’
The Lovely Eggs have always done things differently.
They got into this whole music thing to avoid responsibility. Jobs are boring and besides, says Holly Ross, music is the only one that comes with free booze.
So, after a brief rub with mainstream-adjacent success (with Angelica) which burned her so much she refused to pick up a guitar for over two years, she and husband Dave Blackwell decided they’d give rock’n’roll another shot – but this time they’d do it on their own terms.
Seeing them on stage tonight, it’s hard to imagine them doing anything else.
Punk rock oozes from Holly’s very pores, from the minute she walks on stage in a dinky 60s-style psychedelic minidress clutching a can of Stowford and intoning the fuzz-and-feedback love-fest that is Minibus – “oh the pleasure, and oh the pain, just to go on tour with you again” – before throwing on her guitar and launching into the high-octane garage-trash of Introducing Bullshit, headbanging while both thrash the life out of their instruments.
This stuff is timeless; it’s no wonder they’ve been at it for 20 years.
The Eggs attribute some of their success – or at least their joy in the game – to the fact they have steadfastly eschewed all the trappings of the modern music industry.
Proudly DIY, they don’t have label backing, management or agents. They live a modest lifestyle because they’re devoted to the muse – music is a way of life, and that includes the driving, the equipment lugging, the packing up and sending of records. They’re as indie as could be. They are still on Spotify but hey, pick your battles.
It’s got them a long way, from two decades touring the world to mainstage festival slots, major collabs, most recently with Pigsx7 (covering Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff no less), and a loyal following which includes in its number the legendary Iggy Pop.
The fans appreciate their ethic as well as their sound, and the loyalty is found in good measure tonight, from those singing along with every word to the number of ‘fuck it’ scarves raised aloft when Holly sings that particular anthem that comedically tackles – or perhaps disparages – life’s big questions.
The band choose their lineups differently too, and the crowd’s goodwill extends to the two idiosyncratic supports tonight.
Up first, janky art-rock four-piece Polite Bureaux acknowledge the significance of being plucked out of Bradford and taken on the road by the Lovely Eggs.
“This doesn’t really happen to a band like us. We normally play pubs to two people so this has been – pretty fucking weird to be fair,” says vocalist Joe Smith. “You’re rocking it,” someone shouts in response.
Their closer, intense synth-driven spoken word piece Broke Biscuits, is met with friendly enthusiasm and they leave the stage with stars in their eyes.
Second support, the brilliant Rob Auton, is clearly more familiar with big crowds and certainly adept at working them.
He uses his diffident humour and some interactive bits (“Have you ever worked together as a crowd before tonight? You seem very polished…”) to get them onside before reading a handful of his more reflective poems (“What is water? The smell of cordial before you’ve added the orange / The heartbeat of all wetness / Arch enemy of the Dyson airblade / The opposite of pastry…”)
His meditations on life before mobile phones – “People never used to say ‘I’m on the bus’ or apologize for going through tunnels” – are met with knowing laughter from the crowd, which largely makes the main act tonight look positively youthful, though perhaps that’s more a testament to the common belief that music keeps you young combined with the pair’s undeniable joie de vivre.
The Eggs blast through nearly 90 minutes of material spanning their back catalogue, from first single Have You Ever Heard a Digital Accordion? from their 2008 debut EP right through to The Grind from September’s album Bin Juice.
The songs and their deadpan Lancastrian chat are met with equal delight by the audience.
“Do you want to witness a crime against music? It might turn your stomach,” they say, tongue-in-cheek, ahead of Don’t Look at Me (I Don’t Like It). “The lights are mad,” they complain; it’s either too dark or “like the kitchen” – can we not see the audience, they request: ”When we perform we like to pretend there’s no one there.”
The fans, affectionately known as ‘the eggheads’, appreciate this straight-talking approach, even laughing along as Holly calls them “fucking heathens!” for not having read American novelist Richard Brautigan, punctuating her derision by hurling one of his books into the crowd.
The duo’s down-to-earth persona paired with their high-energy escapist psychedelia is a winning combination.
It was their first ever deli sandwich, for example, that inspired whimsical uke-led ditty Oh the Stars.
“The cheese went in first which is fine but then it was rocket – what is rocket?!” said Dave, recounting their unnerving experience at that deli counter. “That was the first time we had rocket,” reminisces Holly, wistfully, before embarking on the track which starts with a stray olive and ends with the whole universe.
They are, by nature, endearing, with their stories an important part of their enduring appeal. They live their art, without compromise, and through that appear to have found an enviable happiness. And they’re keen for others to get on board.
“Rob was right when he said build a life you like,” says Holly, referring to one of Auton’s existentially upbeat poems. “That’s what we’re doing. it doesn’t need to be how they tell you it has to be. If you don’t like it, don’t be part of it.”
All images: Ursula Billington
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