The renowned Atomic Jam nights are one of the leading techno nights in the country and have been holding events at the Que Club in Birmingham for the past 7 years. This was my first time back at Atomic Jam for 2 years and a night I was looking forward to immensely. I arrived at the venue just after 10.00 to find no queue whatsoever, which I thought was kind of strange. After a quick pat down by security, I headed off inside. Security on the night were fine, no trouble at all from them and they kept their distance all night. First thing I did when I got inside was to go and check out the main room. I just love the main room at the Que Club, such a wicked arena. The way the seats rise around the side and how the DJ is situated at the front, as if they were preaching to the crowd. The thing which struck me immediately when I first set foot in the main room, was the quality of sound system. It was booming, literally the pounding basslines emanating from the speakers caused people’s ribcages to throb. Perfect clarity as well, made it one of the best sound systems I’ve heard in a very long time. Lighting was good as well and there was a big screen above the DJ, projecting trippy visuals to the crowd. First DJ on the decks was one of the resident DJs, Tony Work. He played an alright set of techno, nothing special and mixing was bog standard. Ade Fenton the other resident DJ, followed on next and stepped it up a bit, playing it more banging. Dropping in tunes such as the wicked Dave Clarke remix of Green Velvets ‘La La Land’. The set did its job of getting the dancefloor full on going. By the end of his set the arena was rammed and proper having it. There’s no finer arena to dance in, then a packed main room at the Que Club :) The crowd was mixture of people, there were crusties, techno heads, clubbers, ravers, chin stroking techno geeks...just a concoction of people. Atmosphere was generally good throughout, not as happy smiley as hardcore, but still nice. It was now 1.00 and Neil Landstrumm, one of Scotland’s finest techno producers, was next on doing a live PA. Playing completely live, twiddling all sorts of knobs and sliders on this huge mixing desk at the front, he generated some quality techno. I was very impressed with the tunes he was coming out with and was probably my set of the night. It was pretty hard, but not full on unrelenting banging, and was characterised by quirky weird sounds and effects in the tunes to give them a unique edge. It was futuristic sounding, different and pushed the boundaries, which represents to me what techno music is all about. Next on stage was another live PA with a performance from Speedy J. Hailing from Rotterdam, a long time pioneer of techno and in fact some of his stuff from the very early 90s provided strong influences to the early gabba tracks. He didn’t disappoint tonight, playing some proper banging techno in its rawest form. The pace of his tunes were relentless, recreating the tunes live whilst gradually building it up and displaying plenty of dark industrial elements, such as his recent tune ‘Kreckc’. The crowd were going mad during his performance and glad to see the Rotterdam techno master was on top form. If you’ve never seen him live, go see ! Just past 3.00 so I went down to the drum n bass room for a change of scenery. But it wasn’t in the big 2nd room like I thought it’d be, but in the smaller 3rd room next door, which I found a bit disappointing. Not sure why that was, maybe the drum n bass at Atomic Jam doesn’t attract as many people as they hope for these days. Peshay was on the decks, who I haven’t seen DJ for years. He played a pretty good set, loads of funk and vocal influence which got the room brocking. But I wanted to head back to the main room because Canada’s finest, Richie Hawtin was on the decks in the middle of his 3 hour set. Now last time I saw Hawtin play was last September, where I though he was below par and didn’t work the crowd at all. But tonight he was wicked. Playing his usual driving minimal style and using the pioneering Final Scratch technology on the decks to good effect. Carefully building and layering loops together over tracks and also doing his trademark of stacking up the delays on the mixer, to create intense loops of sound. And often leaving the bass off on tracks for ages, while building the mix, before finally slamming the bass back in each time to the expectant dancefloor’s delight....good stuff. The first half of his set was pretty full on banging, really letting it rip. But in the second half, he started to experiment and mix it up a bit more. Playing quite a few dubbier and more abstract sounding tracks while blending that in with the harder selection. Good to see he just didn’t ‘bang it out’ non stop for 3 hours and took it deeper, which made it more interesting for the dancefloor and worked the crowd well. But before I knew it was 6.00 and his set was over, finishing off with the Sven Vath remix of ‘Eurostar’ by Si Visions. By no means a set of mind blowing proportions as I’ve witnessed of Hawtin in the past, but certainly was good to see the bespectacled shaven headed one back on form. Overall it was a superb night. For me, there’s nothing more fulfilling then dancing to first class banging techno music all night long. If you’ve never been to Atomic Jam, I thoroughly recommend it and worth checking it out for something different....Techno music reaches parts of the mind like no other music can :) Shout to Conrad !
