Edinburgh’s Bongo Club – wherever it’s based, now onto its fourth home in around 10 years – has always been more than a gig venue.
So it’s apt that the Lovely Eggs should have a standup comic as main support. That dubious honour goes to one Rob Auton, who is more more of a poet and philosopher, but of the comedic variety.
Fortunately he is well-equipped to handle a crowd clearly there to see the headliners, and deflects some good-natured but surreal heckling as well as can be expected. Particularly problematic are a comedy duo down the front – one seemingly Polish, the other who will be revealed as The Lovely Eggs’ Greatest Fan – who are prepared to vociferously argue the colour of a pepper that Orton produces from his shopping bag.
Another poem based around the line: “Water! What is it good for? Quite a lot actually” gets the crowd ‘singing’ along, save TLEGF, who loudly declares “I just wanna shout ‘WATER’!”
Perhaps you had to be there.
After all, The Lovely Eggs are, as discussed, the band that everyone wants to see, or so it appears.
When Holly and David take the stage, they announce that it’s ‘National Album Day’, (us neither) so as what may be a unique treat, (well, maybe until 20 years from now) current long-player ‘This Is Eggland’ will be played in full, and in order.
This means that, naturally, we start with the psychedelic throb of ‘Hello I Am Your Sun’, as good a way to launch into an electrifying hour or so from Lancashire’s top musical husband and wife duo.
It’s however perhaps a little non-plussing that ‘Wiggy Giggy’ – you’ll surely have this embedded in your grey matter if you caught it even once on 6music – is up second, being pure encore material. Except, the band don’t do encores, as it turns out.
Similarly, track 4, ‘I Shouldn’t Have Said That’, is another single, a visceral bundle of noise and energy taking in or exuding elements of the Mary Chain, Babes In Toyland, and even another duo, The Twistettes.
As the hi-energy set bombs along and the crowd get ever-more ‘warmed up’, we have the curious scene of Holly imploring nearby punters to give one fan, clearly overcome by the emotion of seeing his heroes up close and personal, a hug, as ‘Repeat It’ – from a similar template to ‘Wiggy Giggy’ – is aired, and the odd realisation hits me that the band don’t actually do choruses. Or maybe they don’t do verses; either way they provide a series of hooks and sonic shifts that, as discussed, lodge themselves in your brain and command your feet to tap.
Aside from audience bonding, the duo also deliver the tale of how ‘Eggland’ came to be recorded by Dave Fridmann – basically via a drunken ansafone message which must be a lesson for aspiring bands everywhere. It’s a warm atmosphere, with more hugging, as the crowd bonds over a common love of fuzz-ridden guitar and motorik beats.
‘Would You Fuck’ – not all that big on 6music, it must be said – closes the album element of the show as the duo trawl their back catalogue with some more obscure cuts perhaps better known to the likes of Their Greatest Fan.
As ‘promised’ there’s no encore to be had – Holly earlier admitting that she’d be quite happy playing for half an hour – but sometimes less is more.