Atom and His Package w/Attention, Brazil and the Zambonis
March 29th 2003 @ Tribeca Rock Club
16 Warren Street, NYC

Gig-O-Meter: 4.5

Anyone who understands rock music is a nerd. Every single person. The floor at Tribeca before headliner Atom and his Package came on stage was packed with people clad in black T-shirts, horn-rimmed glasses, and all were well below 150 pounds.
Figures though. Adam Goren, the maestro behind pop punk outfit Atom and his Package is the grand duke of the nerd-rock movement, geekier than Weezer, geekier than Nada Surf, geekier then Steve fuckin’ Urkle (and we adore him for it).

The first band to perform that night was Minnesota-based emo clan Attention, who pumped Jimmy Eat World-ly tunes into the half-empty room (that’s what happens when you get booked as the opening-opening-opening band and have to go on at 7:30p.m. … luckily for you, dear reader, I always make sure to get there early). They got heads-a-bobbin’ and feet-a-tappin’, but not much more, so they left the stage a little disenchanted. Poor guys.

Next up was Brazil, who, in my opinion, was way better at tearing it up hardcore style then any band I have seen live in a long, long time. The six-piece band gets extra points for using keyboards (the must-have accessory of any post-millennium hardcore band, remember, kids). As soon as they introduced themselves and broke into the first song of their set, all six members started going into orchestrated fits of epilepsy (how they didn’t end up knocking each other silly on the itty-bitty stage of the Tribeca is beyond me). They had a vague aura of the Blood Brothers, but unfortunately played only a few songs before leaving the stage soaked in sweat, spit and blood.

The lights went out and the crowd roared as the Zambonis walked on stage in hockey helmets, jerseys, and various pieces of hockey-related memorabilia. The Zambonis only play songs about ice hockey. Really. The lead singer, Dave Zamboni, even said so. He said, “Let’s not beat around the bush; we are the Zambonis, and we only sing songs about hockey.” Seriously.

Being cool in hockey shorts is a difficult endeavor. The Zambonis definitely took home the “Geekiest Band of the Night” award, making Atom and his Package look like a Williamsburg hipster. They sang songs such as “Playing to Win,” that had all these cool hockey euphemisms for sex such as: “You grab my stick/I’ll grab your puck.” You have to see it to believe it. Adam joined them for a song also called “the Goalie,” about how it’s not technically cheating if the goalie on your hockey team is an impenetrable 15,000-pound blob. When they left the stage, I felt somewhat enlightened.

Atom was nice enough to offer me a little bit of a chat after his mind-blowing set that night. When I asked him what the craziest thing was that happened during his six-and-a-half-week tour in support of his brand new album Attention! Blah Blah Blah, he was blank for a moment. Why shouldn’t he be? “Weird” things never really happen to Adam. He lives in Philly, writes songs about the metric system, and records them in his house.

Hold on, isn’t that Kevin Bacon at the door?

Dave Zamboni gleefully interrupts my interview with Adam to relate this piece of information: yes, Kevin Bacon is at the door, and Adam’s wife just missed her once in a lifetime chance to pounce him.
“That’s the craziest thing that’s happened all tour,” Adam says as he turns toward me, a perplexed look on his face.

Atom is one of those bands that you either hate or love, like, say, Dashboard Confessional or Har Mar Superstar. They have legions of fanatic teenagers aching to witness their slightest gesture, and an equally numerous and frightening army of people who seriously want them to die. Atom’s Web site has an entire section devoted to hate e-mails, borderlining on death-threats. But on the flipside, there have been few live shows I have attended where a dude with a leather jacket and mullet yell along to the line: “I wanna be/I wanna be a homosexual” (a line from Atom’s anti-homophobe anthem “Hats off to Halford”, about former Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford coming out of the closet a few years back). These are some devoted people. Everybody stood in anticipation, waiting for Adam to divulge the slightest detail of what song would be next. As soon as his Package squiggled the first few bleeps of the opening song of his set, “I am Downright Amazed at What I Cam Destroy With Just a Hammer,” all hell broke lose in the pit. All the fans in unison, screaming the lyrics. It was a sight to be seen. Atom ripped through his set (way too short, in my opinion) feverishly, until we were all beyond spent.

Everyone who understands rock music is a nerd. And goddamn, do we ever rule