The Lovely Eggs
100 Club, London

AMERICA’S Next Top Model (ANTM) is all looking fierce and Tyra’s homilies. Despite its desperate coolness, it never gets beyond “industry” and safe.

For realness you need RuPaul’s Drag Race, where wit and intelligence strut it for all they’re worth. There’s both toughness and heart and so it is with music — the Lovely Eggs bring realness.
 

Their latest album This Is Eggland is launched at this gig, and what a gig. The Lovely Eggs’ music has bollocks. Front-person Holly is a woman and she's got Boris Johnson’s in her pocket. The band is from Lancaster and they’ve been showcasing Lancaster Music Co-op on their current tour, with local writer Ian Marchant kicking off the night by launching his A Hero For High Times about the history of British counter-culture. He's doing it at the right gig.

Co-op band Mr Ben and the Bens also play and, as Porky the Poet quips, they're “the only band to have Lego on their rider.” Young they are and pretty good too.

It’s great to see this sense of community. In proper style, the tour has its own print fanzine and there's even a Tim Wells poem in it. So much music today is industry, it’s inspiring to see a band that sees the joy in craft.