The boys are back in town. Easy Life proves that you can have it all in spite and because of Leicester.
Since releasing their breakthrough single Pockets in 2017, they’ve been marked with a curse of inevitable success. Three years and a bunch of sold-out shows later, playing big boy set at Coachella and fooling around while filming Dead Celebrities video in California, they’re going into the new decade with a bang. Back on the road with Meal Deal tour, promoting their still-hot new EP Junk Food, they stepped off the highway and took a leap into the past with two hometown gigs.
Not bothered with support acts, they’ve put on Scarlxrd’s DJ, Jacky P, to get the crowd boogying to the kinda mainstream, though slapping, tunes.
After the groovy set, and about 100 college kids more, Easy Life finally hopped on to the stage, opening with climate issues tackling, wobbly tune, Earth.
Despite having a young mass of devoted fan(atic)s who were somehow able to mosh to their chill tunes, Easy Life ain’t another teenage sensation. Their sync, hip-hop/jazz-influenced and genre-jumping, pop balances on the edge of existential crisis and hedonistic escapism. An invite to spend melancholy Mondays in the fast cars, taking your next-door crushes to Maccies for 4am dates to talk about sex, dreams and despair. Life’s easy when you don’t care. And if you do, put it into a song.
While The Y Theatre set featured oldies (though still slapping) like Nightmares, iconic Pockets and, so moving that I almost cried, OJPL; it was Junk Food’s night. ‘We’ve been ‘ridin’ with my models in the back of a cop car’ to Dead Celebrities, a stand-out un L.A. lush lifestyle, getting love-sick on Sangria (sweet even without Arlo Parks) and picking up pieces to Spiders.
Easy Life has to been seen live. There’s something charming, crowd-uniting about them. Something that makes you think that they’re still your local band, not the soon-to-be UK sensation.
Some bands are taking politics seriously, stuffing us with re-heated and pre-digested slogans. Some have a sense of humour, put hot-dog outfits on and show off naked Donald Trump (Nice Guys video) to give you a break from heart-breaking reality.
Catching up with life’s absurdity, the new musical revolution will be full-blown ridiculous and abstract. Something exciting is cooking up and it smells like junk food.
The debut album is due this year.
Reviewed by Aleksandra Brzezicka
Organised by Rough Trade Nottingham
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