Atomic Sunrise showing - 12 October 2024

(Originally posted on Facebook 13 October 2024)

Some thoughts on the Atomic Sunrise event last night...

Firstly, I thought it was very well-staged, despite a couple of technical snafus. The Tabernacle - which is pretty much next door to All Saints Church in Notting Hill - was a good venue with a nice vibe, though perhaps not the best night for the Mens toilet to be out of action. I was at the 6pm showing, which was pretty full, guessing around 150 people.

The picture and sound was very well synched - yes, all the music was dubbed from other sources, but Adrian Everett has done a remarkable job with lining up lips and instruments - in fact, there were only a few times when it became 'intrusive' to the experience in any way. Basically, it sounded and looked good - some inevitable graininess projecting the film on a big screen, but again, nothing too distracting. And colour footage of this quality from 1970 is pretty amazing...

Dave Wink has already posted the running order, but here it is (slightly corrected) again:

• Introduction (people arriving inside the Roundhouse, face/body painting etc), soundtracked to Bowie's Memory Of A Free Festival

• Bowie & Hype - Waiting For The Man

• Genesis - Looking For Someone

• Hawkwind - Hurry On Sundown

• Third Ear Band soundtracking the Living Theatre (a procession through the crowd) - afraid I don't know the song either

• Bowie & Hype - The Supermen

• Genesis - The Knife

• Hawkwind - The Reason Is/Be Yourself

• Bowie & Hype - Memory Of A Free Festival

Perhaps like most of the people there, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but it was a surprisingly emotional experience. It's easy to poke fun at the countercultural milieu viewed from 2024, and I'm sure there was just as much slumming/posing going on as there would be at a comparable event today, but dammit, it really did feel like a window on another time where a whole new world was opening up, both musically and socially.

So, the Hawkwind film... If you've seen the clips - gathered here for your convenience https://www.daysoftheunderground.com/videos - then it's basically more of the same, but that is of course tremendous! On HOS, Dave is in commanding form and occupies a lot of the camera time, but we get to see everybody else too, inc Nik with his painted sax. The camera pans across Huw and John H a couple of times, and concentrates on Huw in particular when he's soloing, his guitar held nearly vertically, a look of intense concentration on his face (I think it's the Hawkwind Zoo version on the soundtrack, certainly not the album version).

The TRI/BY footage is quite different. It starts with a long section of (I'm reasonably sure) Tony Crerar (his first appearance with HW) on the floor in front of the stage doing an I'm-trapped-in-a-glass-box mime routine, but he does it very well. We then get Terry tapping rapidly at his cymbal while Nik moves a microphone underneath it. And then... Well, I can't be entirely sure, but it looks very much as though it's mostly creative re-use of the HOS film, though there's more of Nik, a couple of different shots of Huw and Dave, and quite a bit more of Tony's mime, inc a rather nifty moonwalk. Slightly disappointing, but I guess Adrian could only work with the film he has, and it seemed to the filmmakers at the time that Tony was more interesting than the band onstage!

The Bowie and Genesis footage was also fabulous. You can see why Bowie was destined to be a star, and he does indeed look like he's beamed in from a different, and more beautiful, planet than everybody else. Poor Tony Visconti looks ludicrous in his 'superhero' outfit complete with sparkly pants, while Ronno spends the whole time looking either worried, perplexed or on the point of falling asleep. Peter Gabriel also has star quality, even if he looks very young and puppyish. I didn't realise before what a cool-looking dude drummer John Mayhew was. Putting partisan feelings to one side, Genesis's performance of The Knife was perhaps the best thing last night - I particularly loved the shots of the twirling dancers in front of the stage during its climax. (There was clearly a lot of space in the auditorium during all acts' performances)

I also loved the friendly rivalry among the watching crowd in the Tabernacle, cheering 'their' band's clips - I think the HW fans might have just edged it in terms of noise!

All in all, a really good evening. I know that there's been a lot of controversy around this film and its staging, but I'm really glad I saw it. I wouldn't hold your breath for a proper 'commercial' release - although there's this 'streaming event' we were supposedly part of, not sure how that's going to work - but hopefully there will be more screenings in the future...