Nothing Orange; Arts Festival Brings Home Devizes Phenomenon

Four years ago I witnessed a Gen Z phenomenon in Devizes. With a certain indie punk zest and intelligent songwriting, Devizes School band Nothing Rhymes With Orange built a local following I once compared to Beatlemania. Staging their own gigs and recording original songs, they harnessed appeal from a dedicated fanbase. By the summer of the following year I suggested to DOCA they should host them at the Devizes International Street Festival, and advised residents young and old, to come support this blossoming sensation; and they listened…..

It will forever remain one of my most fondest memories as editor of Devizine; looking out from the stage across a sea of people stretching the entire Market Place and queuing down the Little Brittox. I announced them, it felt like the right thing to do after banging on so much about how good they were! And they absolutely rocked it, opening a wider age demographic to their brilliance, if still local. But Nothing Rhymes with Orange didn’t stop there.

They would play our pub venues, from the Southgate to the Three Crowns, and they would even fit into FullTone, but they cast a net further, as other venues and festivals of other local areas headhunted them. The vibe was spreading, from Bradford-on-Avon’s Roots Festival to Marlborough’s Lamb and The Barge on HoneyStreet, the lads fast becoming Devizes musical export of the century.

The only time I ever questioned their united successful future was at the end of their sixth form tunnel, when so many school bands demobilise to pursue separate universities, careers, or family obligations. It was 2024, they did a farewell gig at the Exchange in Devizes, and I set up an interview with them. It was more Chow for Now than breakup, as frontman Elijah Easton, guitarist Fin Anderson-Farquhar, drummer Lui Venables, and bassist Sam Briggs all planned to study music at Bristol uni, and even reside together; result!

For the interview I drew up some quirky questions, as usually a band of this age didn’t take themselves overly serious, but what was revealed was evidently the most dedicated band with the most earnest sense of direction I’ve ever chatted with. It is this motivation to their development which drives the phenomenon to their international success. Nothing Rhymes with Orange have matured their sound, harnessed a style, but the audience response is equal to the Gen Z parties of home, just on a massive and international scale.

Bookings this year stretch from Exeter to a Brighton tour, onto Leeds, North Shields and Sheffield. The CURCUS Festival in Dorset, Godney Gathering, Somerset, and back to their new residence with some of Bristol’s biggest festivals. You can find our lads at Taunton, Plymouth, Rotherham, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and London’s premier venue The Dublin Castle. The end of July sees them in Gibraltar, and each and every date makes me proudly think, yeah, they’ve cracked this!

But for their original Devizes fans, there is one important gig on their list, for if it’s one thing to see Springsteen play, it’s another to see Springsteen in New Jersey. Devizes Arts Festival has brought many big names to town, over their forty years, some became bigger afterwards, others already A-list. This year is likely the first time they bring an act BACK to Devizes, as Saturday June the 13th sees Nothing Rhymes with Orange playing The Corn Exchange. The lads returning is going to be big, perhaps as big as the sacks of washing for their mums!!

The Devizes Arts Festival put out, what I considered a slightly wonky perception of this in a social media post. Stating their generation didn’t like paying for gigs, I’d argue it was more through financial reasoning than anything cultural. Besides, Gen Z have grown now, some with jobs, or at least with better parent persuasion techniques! While worth every penny, Devizes Arts Festival events come with a price, in order to stage them and cover the many free fringe events their program offers.

To attract a target audience rare for the Festival, tickets have been kept to a minimum, weighing in at just £12.94. I sincerely hope this works, because it is not just Gen Z this event should attract here in Devizes. In my honest opinion, the red carpet should be rolled out for these lads, who’ve put Devizes back on the musical map of England, since the success of The Hoax in the nineties. For the record, I recall standing by a younger Elijah, watching Jon Amor at his Southgate residency with a respectful eye.

The lads of Nothing Rhymes with Orange deserve to be shown a Devizes welcoming home party like no other, by all of this town’s live music aficionados of all ages, not only for their international success, but for motivating a new generation here to pick up guitars and drums and start their own adventures. So, if your kid begs you for some money for a ticket, get one for them, and get one for yourself too!!