Tag: bands

Homecoming Gig for Nothing Rhymes With Orange at the Three Crowns Devizes

Friday evening in the liveliest of Devizes pubs, The Three Crowns, with Devizes best upcoming band, Nothing Rhymes With Orange pulling a two hour set out of the hat like a magician pulls a rabbit out of theirs. Surely a perfect match and an unmissable occasion; but, ah, shoot, did I do a cidered-up speech? There’s vague recollections of it this morning. Please accept my apologies!!

Something of a homecoming for the boys, with recent gigs at Bristol’s Louisiana, Bath’s Komedia, and the Gunners in London, and forthcoming dates ranging from the New Forest Rag-City Festival to Trowbridge Festival, only returning here for FullTone. They’re getting the bookings, gig bunnies of Devizes know why.

Changing from Saturday’s usual live music slot for the Three Crowns to a Friday may’ve reduced footfall a smidgen, but just as my arm was twisted, many sought the rare opportunity to see how they’re fairing in the fame, for free. Their devoted Gen Z fan base front and centre, millennial regulars taking up the support trench and anyone older in reserve, save for a few breaking rank, illustrating to those younger how it was done in their day; it was a mixed bunch but plentiful and hospitable, there only to enjoy themselves, and you know NRWO will deliver this.

The date change was to fit in an audition gig on Saturday for the Pilton Stage, a subsidiary of Glastonbury Festival, of which we wish them the very best of luck. In fact, I did wish them such while they were tuning, whereupon frontman Elijah Easton acknowledged precautions to preserve his voice for tomorrow’s big day, and I looked doubtful at him replying, “yeah, right, that’s not going to happen, is it?!” This contest today is one tough cookie, crossing fingers and toes may not be enough, but come what may, as I believe I said in my slobbering speech, this hometown loves and supports these lads, ergo, they wouldn’t halfheartedly perform to them least anyone. 

Because, and here’s the deal breaker; with over a year on a pedestal, this youthful quartet of indie-punk-pop still revels in the spotlight and this jubilant enthusiasm reflects onto an audience and reverberates throughout. It makes for a positive atmosphere, a benchmark for a memorable gig. And that is exactly what happened last night at the Three Crowns, a pub usually encouraging acts to perform covers but needn’t for this gig, as the passion these boys deliver has their fans here singing back their originals to them as if they were classic covers. Especially when the Greggs steak bake falls apart. 

It was a glorious occasion, the tremendous night I never doubted. Nothing Rhymes With Orange open a two-hour set, time was on their hands to play through every single they’ve produced to date, maybe try some new ones, and covers made the remainder. Blink 182, Kings of Leon, and particularly Arctic Monkeys got the Orange makeover, and there were some especially interesting smooth ambient breaks teetering on prog-rock. Yet it is rare even with a two hour set, for these boys to lower the bpm; it’s uptempo yet paced, but nonchalant rather than all out fury, therefore of universal appeal.

A telltale sign of said passion for their labour came at the finale, when the band didn’t want it to end anymore than the fans screaming for more. It was lead guitarist Fin Anderson-Farquhar who looked at me as I tried to fanboy my way to the microphone, that they had run out of songs to play. Therefore it was up the band to, tongue-in-cheek, knock up the archetypal Oasis cover.  

I don’t know what I needed to say so desperately, but I felt I needed to say something about wishing them the best of luck for today’s audition, to rouse the crowd and let them hear how the local fans support them, because they thoroughly deserve it in my book. Then, probably due to fatigue at an exhausting show of epic proportions, they idiotically left me alone on the microphone!! It was there where I thought I’d convey my compassion to local blues heroes the Hoax over thirty years ago, because I believe that was a Devizes phenomenon then, and we are witnessing the next right now.

Elijah, Fin, bassist Sam Briggs, drummer Lui Venables, are tighter as a band than ever before, as they journey to college together, they take with them a comradeship, and they take a shared passion for their music, and it is something which continues to improve; last night proved that on their hometurf, superbly.

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Lady Nade; Sober!

Dry January, anyone? Well, Lady Nade just plunged into an outdoor 4°C eucalyptus sauna for a social media reel. But whilst I’d require a stiff…

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Rooks; New Single From M3G

Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward “E”) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy tunes…

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Atari Pilot’s Right Crew, Wrong Captain

Only gamers of a certain age will know of The Attic Bug. Hedonistic socialiser, Miner Willy had a party in his manor and wanted to retire for the evening. Just how a miner in the eighties could’ve afforded a manor remains a mystery; but that erroneous flaw was the tip of the iceberg. In this ground-breaking ZX Spectrum platform game, the Ribena Kid’s mum appeared to guard Willy’s bedroom, tapping her foot impatiently. Touch this mean rotund mama and she’d kill you, unless you’d tided every bit of leftovers from the bash. Turned out, months after the game’s release, one piece, in the Attic, was impossible to collect. Until this glitch became public knowledge, players were fuming as an intolerable bleeping version of “If I was a Rich Man,” perpetually looped them to insanity.

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I swear, if I hear that tune, even some forty years on I cringe; the haunting memory of my perseverance with the impossible Jetset Willy. Music in videogames has come a long way, thank your chosen deity. Yet in this trend of retrospection I terror at musical artists influenced by these cringeworthy clunky, bleeping melodies of early Mario, or Sonic soundtracks; like techno never happened, what are they thinking of? It was with caution, then, when I pressed play on the new single from Swindon band “Atari Pilot.” I had heard of them, but not heard them. I was pleasantly surprised.

For starters, this is rock, rather than, taken from the band’s name, my preconceived suspicion I would be subject to a lo-fi electronica computer geek’s wet dream. While there is something undeniably retrospective gamer about the sonic synth blasts in Right Crew, Wrong Captain, it is done well, with taste and this track drives on a slight, space-rock tip. Though comparisons are tricky, Atari Pilot has a unique pop sound. No stranger to retrospection, with echoey vocals and a cover akin to an illustration from Captain Pugwash, still this sound is fresh, kind of straddling a bridge between space-rock and danceable indie. Oh, and it’s certainly loud and proud.

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A grower, takes a few listens and I’m hooked. Their Facebook blurb claims to “change the rules of the game, take the face from the name, trade the soul for the fame…I’m an Atari Pilot.” After their debut album “Navigation of The World by Sound” in 2011, a long hiatus took in a serious cancer battle. But Atari Pilot returned in 2018 with an acoustic set at the Swindon Shuffle. The full band gathered once again the following year with live shows and a new set of “Songs for the Struggle.” This will be the title of their forthcoming follow-up album, “When we were Children” being the first single from it, and now this one, “Right Crew, Wrong Captain,” is available from the end of July.

Its theme is of isolation, “and defiance, after the ship has gone down,” frontman Onze informs me. There’s a haunting metaphor within the intelligent lyrics, “you nail yourself to the mast and you pray that everything lasts, you just want to know hope floats, when the water rises, coz it’s gonna rise, take a deep breath and count to ten, sink to the bottom and start again.”

There’s a bracing movement which dispels predefined ideas of indie and progresses towards something encompassing a general pop feel, of bands I’ve highlighted previously, Talk in Code and Daydream Runaways, Atari Pilot would not look out of place billed in a festival line-up with these acts, and would add that clever cross between space-rock with shards of the videogames of yore, yet, not enough to warrant my aforementioned fears of cringeworthy bleeps. Here’s hoping it’s “game over” for that genre. That said, thinking back, when you bought your Atari 2600, if you recall, oldie, you got the entire package of two joysticks and those circler controllers too, as standard; could you imagine that much hardware included with a modern console? Na, mate, one controller, you’ve got to buy others separately.

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So, if decades to come we have a band called X-Box or PlayStation Pilot, I’d be dubious, but Atari gave us quality, a complete package; likewise, with Atari Pilot!

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