Live Review

Avi Buffalo – Hoxton Bar And Kitchen, London

• 7th Sep 2010

You can’t help feeling a little self-conscious in the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen. Like you should perhaps have put more effort into trying to achieve that effortless cool look. A place where everyone wishes (in vain) that they were half as fab as the uber-boho-cool bar staff.

In pleasing contrast, Avi Buffalo quietly, scruffily materialised on stage at this intimate, sold-out gig looking like they’d just popped in for a cuppa. And throughout the evening they proved themselves unassuming, unpretentious, genuinely talented and impossible not to like. Bassist Arin Fazio played in his socks for heaven’s sake.

Which might help to explain the critical success of their self-titled debut album. There’s something appealingly honest about this collection of raw, sometimes clunkily naive songs. Add the achey-breaky voice and twinkling guitar stylings of main guy Avi Buffalo (aka Avi Zahner-Isenberg) and you get the sort of band that fronts up on stage with a barefaced talent that doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody.

The trio (sans keyboardist Rebecca Coleman, who left the band recently) got their big single, ‘What’s in it For?’, out of the way first. Which worked nicely – no dramatic build-up of anticipation, and now the audience could settle in to comfortably enjoy the more harmonic, less whiney offerings of ‘Coaxed’ and ‘Truth Sets In’.

It was a crackingly confident set. Avi’s fingers didn’t pause on his guitar’s frets for a moment the whole night, mesmerising the crowd with a constant, highly detailed melody. Imagine Hendrix joining the Beach Boys and taking up flamenco, then super distort it so there’s a fair bit of noise, and you might get fairly close.

Rhythm guitar? Keyboards? Pfft, not needed (sorry Becky). These guys work well as a trio – Mr Buffalo quite rightly takes centre stage, and the bass and drums provide lively, clever support. The pared-down sound suits the frustrated angst present in so many of the songs too. And there were moments when the guitar solos combined with drummer Sheridan Riley’s work on the cymbals to create an esoteric beauty Panda Bear would have been proud of.

‘Remember Last Time’ was a particular joy, and was really only missing a crowd high on sun and cider (and perhaps less uber-boho-cool) to bounce along to it.

This was the kind of gig that reminds you why you bother seeing bands live in the first place. Songs that feel slightly cringey and unsophisticated on the album grabbed you with their immediacy on stage. Solos you might have felt impatient about on your iPod soared with such well-crafted exuberance they made you turn to your gig buddy and smile.

It was all thoroughly satisfying.