The Atomic Rays – The Old Tavern
Friday July 27^th 2007

Simon MacSorley

The Atomic Rays strapline is “Quite simply, they are Astonishing”.

Maybe I wouldn’t go quite that far, but they are bloody good. The Rays stepped in to the breach, when I had a cancellation from a band who were unable to play due to a line-up change. Despite having not seen them before, I had been impressed by their MySpace site and they came highly recommended by a number of people whose musical judgement I trust. 

The Rays are a 5-pice band consisting of Ray D8 on vocals, Ray Zon Detra on guitar, Ray Gunn on bass, Ray Sir Roof, on keys and Ray Dar on drums. I was astonished to discover that these weren’t actually their real names.

So, what about the music?

Well, despite a good but less-than-capacity crowd (Harbourside Festival?), they went down a storm. 

Although claiming “70’s based rock with sci-fi sensibilities”, they occasionally strayed into other decades (Oasis – Rock n’ Roll Star, Suede – Film Star, Feeder etc). All was played to the highest standard, but I personally felt that they were at their best with the 70’s stuff, which included Bowie, T-Rex, & Mott The Hoople. This was enhanced by the swirling 70’s keyboard sound and Ray D8’s animated vocal style.

The only low point for me was “Delilah” – a song which in my humble opinion is simply irretrievably crass, even done a là Alex Harvey. I did notice some other looks of distain from the crowd as well so I wonder how well this goes down elsewhere? This was however quickly forgotten when they moved on to “White Punks On Dope” – certainly a varied set!!

The Atomic Rays use an interesting projection system to project psychedelic 70’s images to the back of the stage. It was great while it lasted but unfortunately, the stand collapsed at the end of the first set, so that was the end of that.

A fantastic evening went out with a bang on an encore consisting of a brilliant rendition of the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, which had the crowd dancing in front of the stage – always a good sign. 

If you are up for it lads, I will definitely be inviting you back to the Old Tavern.