George Ezra reveals the biggest 'pinch me moments' of his career

Ahead of his triumphant headline appearance at Barclaycard presents Isle of Wight Festival on Saturday evening (17th June), the ever-genial George Ezra spoke with Absolute Radio’s Sarah Champion from the comfort of his backstage dressing room.

During the chat, Sarah asked the serial hitmaker what the biggest ‘pinch me moments’ have been during his wildly successful career so far.

“I think it's an easy question to answer because they are the standout moments,” George replied. “They will be festival performances… I remember really clearly the first time playing at a festival and people (were) singing ‘Budapest’ along (with me).

“Things like that you can't put a price on them, and you can't then recreate them - there can only be the first time that happens. Everything that happens between now and then is exciting for different reasons, but it's that first record (2014’s ‘Wanted on Voyage’), I think they're the things that stand out.”

He continued: “The firsts keep coming as well because although it may be the first time you play at the Isle of Wight Festival, for instance, it might be the first time you play on a particular stage, and the next time you're back is the first time that you play on a different stage, and they keep rolling in. It’s good.”

Asked by Sarah what’s it like to have 60,000 people singing your lyrics back to you, George said: “It’s surreal. I'm sure someone will have said to you before in an interview, it’s when they know somebody in the audience, that's when they're most nervous.

“It's almost the opposite. The size of these festival audiences on the main stages are so vast, it's hard to get your head around and (they) actually become less nerve wracking.”

He added: “As someone who grew up going to festivals, you're aware that people - don't get me wrong, they're there to enjoy the music - but it's also people are kind of like floating through. We might stop here for five or 10 minutes, you might go down there. It’s a bit less stress. People just want to have fun.”

You can watch George Ezra’s full interview with Sarah Champion below where he also discusses what it was like performing on a stool at Isle of Wight Festival in 2019, his documentary End To End, and why he will NEVER reveal the name of his high school band.

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• Isle of Wight Festival
• George Ezra