It’s bright shining sunshine and there’s a good fifteen thousand people milling around the Main Stage, The Kooks just having had everyone on their feet for a dance but now they’re all waiting for every indie kid’s favourite English guy with a guitar, George Ezra. Since 2014 when we had James Bay, Hozier, Ben Howard, Tom Odell and a plethora of other dashing singer/songwriters everyone else has gone away to work on another album, George Ezra being the first on the return. Two years away and he still comes on as clean-cut and bashful as he did when Wanted On Voyage was first topping the charts in a shirt nearly as floral as his backdrop.

When he walks on stage there’s no beating it around the bush, just a quick smile and wave before getting his guitar on and going straight into ‘Cassy O’ maybe it’s nerves maybe it’s just how he does things but no one minds the lack of small talk. ‘Cassy O’ is a great opener, he’s grinning, the crowd are grinning back and it’s the perfect easy sing-along without having to get one of his hits out too early in the set. He runs through fan favourites such as ‘Leaving It Up To You’ and ‘Listen To The Man’ seamlessly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MobK8g5mZTs

Ezra seemingly teases ‘Budapest’ after this, alluding to a European city but instead launches into fan favourite ‘Barcelona’. It’s a longing song that grows as it rolls on, and it sounds wonderful with the acoustics of an open stage. It has the crowd like putty in his hands. ‘Listen to the Man’ goes down the best so far, garnering a bit of a sing and a dance from the front few rows of fans. Then follows ‘Don’t Matter Now’, his newest single and in testament to it there are a fair few thousand people singing along already even for the ones that aren’t he makes it as accessible as his older tunes with clap along’s and the shouts of ‘don’t matter now’ between lines. Even in the bar queue, there were a lot of ‘do do doo’s. As the show goes on any nerves he had appear to have fizzled out, Ezra confidently engaging with the audience.

Next rolls ‘Blame It On Me’ which naturally goes down an absolute treat, plenty of girls and boys on their friends’ shoulders as the euphoric sweeping chorus comes in for the biggest sing-along of the festival yet (Kasabian take that title on that evening). He slows down the set to a gentle sway with ‘Song 6’ before tackling  ‘Budapest’, his breakout hit, to close the set. He’s never looked more comfortable than during this song, bobbing and shuffling about the stage. Him and his band’s stage presence is not to be underrated at all, they all play with incredible synchronicity, Ezra’s folksy brand of pop comes together seamlessly in his live show, proving why he deserves to sit atop the charts.

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