CHRISTOPHER FRIESEN Enlarge Image

The Mystics

Last night the Atomic Centre, with its painted-black walls and grimy concrete floors, was the epitome of a deep, dark, rock n’ roll abyss.

When I arrived, near 11:00 p.m. longhaired rockers with bleary-eyes and Standards in hand dotted the space. I had just missed The Girth and Atomic Don and the Black Sunrise were straightening their turbans and mere minutes to blast-off.

Made up of fragments from The Angry Dragons, Microdot and Pop Crimes, the band apparently "crawled out of a pile of radioactive goo last Halloween," according to its bio. The foursome clearly has a sense of humour and that propensity for fun was slathered all over the night’s set of mostly lo-fi surf rock. From the turbans the band wore to the b-movie-inspired song-titles (Apocalypse Again, Nuclear Fiction, Television Zombie Man) to vocalist/guitarist Jan Field’s crazy-eyed performing and sporadic aaahhhhs!!

Drummer Bill Northcott took over vocal duties on a few tracks, guiding the band’s doo-wop reveries with teen-dream crooning done through a John Waters lens.

Tsunami-sized guitar rollicks on a sped-up cover of The Jazz Butcher’s Death Dentist roused the show’s already-high energy while set closer Cracked Actor saw the group galvanize David Bowie’s 1973 glam rock classic.

Rock Lake delivered a set of raucous garage punk, fortified by Joe Warkentin’s shit-kicking drumming. Near the set’s open, a drum stick flung in the air and into the crowd, giving one surprised fan near the front a wake-up rock-show token. As guitarist/vocalist Jan Quackenbush belted out each jam, bassist Daniel Pangman followed along with thrashing bass riffs and hair-in-face head-flailing.

In order to get back to aceartinc. in time to see one more act, I had to duck out of Rock Lake’s show mid-set, but in retrospect I wish I had stayed longer.

A show of well-knowns and wunderkinds – all of whom I can’t wait to see again.