You’d have to be the most terrific curmudgeon not to walk away from a George Ezra show feeling at least a little uplifted. He’s got a slightly awkward charm, like a nerd trapped inside the body of the first XI captain; he’s absolutely determined that the audience has a good time, to the extent of asking them to stand up for Blame It on Me (he’d had them standing for Paradise, but he took too long between songs and everyone sat down), and he’s got hooks so plentiful he could go long-line fishing with them.
These are songs that have been laboured over. Hooks as indelible as Cassy O’s don’t get written by accident, and you can hear the cleverness in the way the chords under the chorus shuffle their order rather than directly repeating: hooks under hooks. He’s spoken often about his mental health, and it rises up in his lyrics – in the lecture he gets from a friend in Pretty Shining People about being afraid to embrace the world; the references to anxiety in Get Away – but these aren’t just sad lyrics in cheerful music. They’re sad lyrics in music designed to feel like sunshine.
