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The Lovely Eggs @ tv21 Manchester - 20/06/2009 - Live Review

Posted: 29th June 2009
Review Info
Rating:
4 out of 5
Artist:
Reviewer:
Stewart Darkin
The Lovely Eggs @ tv21 Manchester - 20/06/2009 -  Live Review

Live Review

The Lovely Eggs are one part Holly Ross, one part David Blackwell and one part complete and utter, asylum-grade, madness.

All too frequently, musicians try to play the oblique, barmy, I'm-mad-me card and miss the mark totally, leaving onlookers shifting restlessly and laughing only in discomfort, wishing it over. This is not how it is with The Lovely Eggs and refreshingly, and unusually, comparisons with other artists do not come easily.

Following Clint Boons introduction, as the duo lines up in the creamy Saturday afternoon hue of another of Mrs Boons tea parties, blonde cherrybombshell Holly with guitar and mic stand silhouetted against David's drum kit, the audience could be forgiven for expecting something of the Ting Tings' digi-pop or maybe the White Stripes' raw and rowdy Led Zep shtick.

What comes next is neither predictable nor easily forgotten. With sparkling if startling passion, The Lovely Eggs launch into their opening number and within a bar, all bets are off. At first, no one is quite sure whether the show has started or if an unscripted emergency has been declared. Eyes dart nervously to the door in anticipation of the police or paramedics or even men in white coats.

Part-nursery rhyme, part post-pub screamalong, I'm Having A Party And We're Killing Ourselves is a shock to the system, David thrashing out the beats and Holly, head back, urgently screeching her way through with obvious joy and infectious abandon.

The room relaxes; it knows theres going to be fun. Kids tap their toes soberly and grown-ups find themselves grinning like drunken toddlers. It fits with the weekly Tea Party ethos perfectly; Holly's effervescence and spangly humour straight off the top of one of Charlie Boon's homemade glittering fairy cakes.

More playful rebelliousness follows; the all too brief but charming and shoutily brilliant Jon Carling, the album title track If You Were A Fruit and, amongst other gems, the finale Have You Ever Heard a Digital Accordion?

Well have you? The Lovely Eggs interact with their audience, they shine and charm, they scream and smash, they skip and they hop.

When Holly passes over a set list, studiously handwritten in a child-like scrawl that mixes upper and lower cases, the spell is complete, even if it is no clearer quite what all this has been about.

Stewart Darkin