It would be easy to be a little dismissive of George Ezra. A wholesome late twentysomething hailing from the rock and roll badlands of Hertfordshire, Ezra is the kind of pop star you could happily take home to meet your grandparents. A graduate of the British and Irish Modern Music Institute, good-looking in that long, toothy Prince William way, he seems to be laboratory designed not to offend or challenge even the most prickly sensibilities.
His music is harder to pin down. With its repeated calls and refrains, it blends folk, pop, soul, blues and calypso styles into an uncomplicated feelgood mix that is both old-fashioned and summer-fresh. The melodies are bright crayon drawings; immediate and insistent. Most of the chords can be found in the opening pages of Bert Weedon’s skiffle-era Play in a Day guitar tutorial. The lyrics find hope and relief in a difficult world through the most elemental things: travel, love, friends, sunshine.
Yet there is a twist. Ezra brings to these simple songs a voice like the grand canyon, the kind of voice that appears as an emotional ambush every time it emerges from his mouth. Think Joan Armatrading, Harry Belafonte, Odetta. Rich and deep, it’s a voice born to lend gravitas to even the most bare-boned rhythmic folk and soul: a lovely gift; an aural Kinder Surprise. (Just for balance, he also possesses a fine falsetto.)
Ezra exhibits the slightly lost look and low-key charm of a sweet, smalltown kid in a 1950s teenage gang flick
If this all sounds like a strange list of attributes for a 2022 pop star, its appeal is beyond question. Ezra has had three number one albums – Wanted on Voyage, Staying at Tamara’s and this year’s Gold Rush Kid – and a pailful of hit singles. The arena tonight is packed with kids and their parents, roaring themselves ragged to the anthems, swaying gently to the lullabies. It’s not always clear which party has dragged along the other.
Because Ezra is hugely successful, these unfussy songs come with a big, bells-on production. He is ably backed by a seven-piece band, including a terrific three-piece horn section, and a video screen bursting with bright, travel-themed animations. Tall and blonde, dressed in dark-blue double denim, in the middle of all this ruckus Ezra exhibits the slightly lost look and low-key charm of a sweet, smalltown kid in a 1950s teenage gang flick.
He’s not lost at all, of course. For 100 minutes he successfully juggles his super-charged singalong pop hits with something a little more fragile, not an easy thing to do in a vast arena. During a pared-back interlude, the hushed gospel of ‘In the Morning’ lands particularly well. ‘Barcelona’ and ‘Budapest’ are thoughtful gap-year anthems, the former finding a lilting meditative flow, the latter a rolling folk-blues, tumbling with imagery and yearning. These are, he tells us, songs of ‘dreaming and escaping’, often written in transit.
Yet for such a seasoned traveller, Ezra too often sticks to the safest roads. ‘Manila’ and ‘All My Love’ are smooth and staid, corporate R&B beamed in from some long-lost Prince’s Trust show circa 1986. ‘Blame It On Me’ flexes from the familiar to something closer to atavistic, before breaking down into an inadvisable piece of fiesta cosplay featuring hand-held drums and whistles.
Because his words – and life, apparently – are not without their anxieties, just occasionally Ezra broods and Ezra pounds. The hiccupping train-track rockabilly of ‘Cassy O’ rattles along like Elvis on the Eurostar. ‘Did You Hear The Rain?’ is meaty and guitar heavy, while the minor-chord blues-rock of ‘Saviour’ has shades of 1980s Fleetwood Mac. Neither quite play to his strengths.
Most often, Ezra fights the darkness within by detonating a nuclear blast of good vibes, offering balm and uplift as remedy, rather than a deeper immersion in the blues. So ‘Pretty Shining People’ – ‘what a terrible time to be alive if you’re prone to overthinking’ – concludes that ‘we’re alright together’ via a chorus so vast it could knock down walls.
For an encore, he pulls out ‘Shotgun’, perhaps his most persuasive and propulsive burst of escapism. ‘There’s a mountaintop that I’m dreaming of,’ Ezra sings, hoarse with conviction. It’s that booming articulation of a naked desperation for change, in the end, that makes these simple, sunny songs feel more substantial than they might – and which makes this unlikely pop star chime with the times.
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