Psych-garage rockers The Avion take a visit to The Chameleon Arts Cafe to showcase their raucous energy. Jake Longhurst reviews.
As this was my first visit to The Chameleon Arts Cafe, I was very excited to introduce myself to
one of Nottingham’s best home-grown venues. With an excellent lineup on the evening, the wall
of amps was all set and ready to go.
First on the bill was Noise, one of Nottingham’s own, an alt-rock band who sound as if they’ve been bred on a diet of Queens Of The Stone Age with a lot of extra flavour from Nirvana’s Bleach and Soundgarden’s Louder Than Love. They brought an instantly captivating atmosphere to the proceedings, and took everyone with them as they created some excellent sounding mosh soundtracks. One song in particular that stood out was the (comparatively) lengthy How To Successfully Completely Fail, which was an excellent song about how to be a horrible person, and sums up brilliantly many ways to completely fail.
Next up was the Derby-based band Fakers, who I think might have actually been my favourite
band of the evening! The band play a raw brand of punk that takes as much from early punk like
The Ramones and the Sex Pistols as it does from IDLES and Witch Fever. They turned the heat
up and got the crowd really active, with a couple pits opening up every other minute seemingly,
causing a riotous atmosphere in the small venue. New single Lemon went off extremely well,
and the band are one of the best local bands I’ve seen in a long time, so I won’t be hanging
around before I see them next!
Finally, the headliners for the evening, The Avion, were onstage to showcase their excellent psych/garage rock sound. Previous headliners for University of Nottingham Punk Society’s gig at JT Soar, they are favourites amongst the local scene and tonight displayed just why! The attendees loved every minute, and I thoroughly enjoyed songs like Mr Darcy’s Sinister Parties and Casa De Dogga.
Even though the venue was small, the band played as if on the biggest stage available, and gave their hearts and souls for an excellent live performance. They had an infectious brand of fun whilst playing, and everyone left the show looking weary yet grinning like loons.
Whilst I’d never seen any of the three bands before. I’m so glad I made it down to the
Chameleon and caught the show. All three are excellent local groups, and could all easily be at
home on much larger stages too. Be sure to get out and catch them all now before they get
even bigger!
Jake Longhurst
Edited by: Jodie Averis
Cover image courtesy of BandCamp.
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