THE ATOM JACKS – THE HOPE & RUIN, BRIGHTON 4.12.21
Local concert DJ’s and promoters Stay Sick were this evening putting on a superb free entry event titled “Messy Trashmas – TrashGaragePunkSurfbeatRockNRoll Dance Party” from 9am to 2am in the downstairs bar at The Hope & Ruin on Queens Road, Brighton.
We were late to the party having been reviewing elsewhere, but we arrived in the nick of time to catch the whole of the jolly decent 50 minute set from The Atom Jacks which ran from 10:35pm to 11:25pm.
Clearly this was a big draw as the street-level bar was absolutely packed with British born revellers and many foreign friends in attendance too, their ages ranging from 18 to circa 60. It’s wonderful that music events like this bring people together.
The last time we caught up with The Atom Jacks was at The Prince Albert on 24th October, when they were heading the bill with Lancy & Nee as well as The Mandelbrot Shakes (who incidentally I spied in the audience this evening). You can read our review of that night HERE. Whilst we are on the subject of who was in the crowd, I noted across the way from me Robber and Tom from Gaye Bykers On Acid, who we reviewed upstairs here at The Hope & Ruin on 20th November – Check out our review HERE.
Back to tonight and the Brighton based (but originally from Chichester) The Atom Jacks trio featuring former BIMM Brighton student Jamie on guitar (he), Lin on bass (she) and Sam on drums (he) were as usual protected from any Saturday night nuclear fallout by wearing their hazmat jumpsuits with their surnames badges listed on each (Hewitt, Hoare and Gasper).
They offer up the intriguing nuclear surf from the bunker and have previously blown the roof off Worthing Surf Festival as much deserved headliners, and are now entertaining the revellers at ‘The Hope’ with their live show of surf rock instrumentals. The Atom Jacks are a Civil Défense detachment formed to spread information to the general public on action when under atomic threat. Through music. For science and your own safety. Nuclear Power Surf. Kaboom”.
We were served 15 original compositions which are all instrumentals and one cover (‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials) which was their encore track. Behind them there was a screen showing vintage mainly cold war film clips that got everyone in the right frame of mind. Their second number ‘Enter The Forbidden Zone’ was particularly good and during track four, ‘Ich Bin Ein Berliner’, Jamie made his first foray into the crowd with his guitar. I suspect this is referring to John F. Kennedy’s anti-communist speech given in West Berlin on 26th 1963,
Tune five (‘Kaitak Konnection’) we were informed by spokesman Jamie was about an airport. That would therefore be the Kai Tak international airport that was used in Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. I was rather keen on Lin’s rumbly bass playing on ‘Bunker Party’, which led into the only medley of two songs in their set ‘Surfin’ JFK’ // ‘Titan II CPU’. By the following two tracks ‘Mirage IV’ and ‘Fission Mission’, there was the beginning of our second mosh pit of the night, having survived one earlier at the Green Door Store.
The Atom Jacks set was a real bum shaking foot tapping bonanza and both Lin and Jamie venturing into the crowd weren’t worried about picking up radiation from us. I think the trio were even taken aback how likely everyone had become. I like the 60’s spy movie music feel to their style and sadly it ended at 11:25pm.
The Atom Jacks setlist:
‘Detonation’
‘Enter The Forbidden Zone’
‘The Man From LOX (Liquid Oxygen Theme)’
‘Ich Bin Ein Berliner’
‘Kaitak Konnection’
‘Bunker Party’
‘Surfin’ JFK’ // ‘Titan II CPU’
‘Mirage IV’
‘Fission Mission’
‘MIG Diplomacy’
‘MK Ultra’
‘Dead Hand’
‘Dead Man’s MIRV’
‘Seb Tropicana Atom Dance’
(encore)
‘Ghost Town’ (The Specials cover)
Check out their Bandcamp page HERE.
Support tonight came from The Scavengers who we had unfortunately missed as we were at the Green Door Store watching Chubby And The Gang. Read our review of that gig HERE.
We last reported on The Scavengers at ‘Punk Picnic 2’ at the Brighton Open Air Theatre on 7.9.19, where we reported that they were “a 4-piece outfit fronted by Ian R. Anderson, who is best known for leading Leicester garage punk band Crazyhead from 1986 onwards. There’s a distinct rockabilly/rock’n’roll vibe going down with these guys and so if you were to amalgamate the gutsy Iggy Pop/Stooges tracks with the Stray Cats, then you can see where they are coming from”.
