"BRIGHTON is the spiritual home for a lot of Mod culture – it was a cultural mecca for us.

“Whenever things got difficult we would jump in [guitarist] David Cairns’s car and take a pilgrimage to Brighton, watch the ocean and contemplate what we were doing.”

For Ian Page, frontman of Mod revival band Secret Affair, Brighton’s role in The Who’s 1975 double album hymn to the movement, Quadrophenia, had a big resonance.

And Bruce Foxton, original bassist of The Jam, felt a similar draw to Brighton – albeit one tinged with sadness as the last place The Jam played together in 1982.

“I love Brighton – it’s a very vibey town,” he says as his band From The Jam prepares to headline a bill of Mod revival favourites tomorrow at the same venue, the Brighton Centre.

From The Jam was a collaboration between Foxton and original drummer Rick Buckler playing the hits of The Jam, as well as delving deep into the Mod favourites’ back catalogue.

Since the departure of Buckler in 2009 Foxton now leads the band with guitarist and singer Russell Hastings and Smiley, drummer with The Alarm.

The Brighton Centre show marks the 50th anniversary year of the seafront battles between the Mods and the Rockers which took both teen tribes overground.

Also on the bill are Page’s Secret Affair, The Chords and the original line-up of The Truth.

And there’s a taste of old school Modernism on Friday night at Concorde 2, with tribute bands Who’s Who and The Small Fakers. Both bands will play the music which established not only the Mod scene of the 1960s, but inspired the 1970 Mod revival and the backward-looking Britpop explosion in the 1990s.

Foxton got into the Mod look and sounds through his brother Derek.

“He was one of the original Mods,” says Foxton. “I would watch him and what he was into – he used to play a lot of Motown and Northern Soul. In The Jam we liked the Mod image – Paul [Weller] was really into it.

“It’s such a strong period with the quality of the music and style. Most fashions come around again sooner or later.”

For Page the Mod look tallied with the fashions he was experimenting with both as Secret Affair and in its predecessors New Hearts.

“We were always very 1960s influenced both musically and in our fashion,” he says. “I would say the fundamental bedrock is the music – it has affected everybody’s music ever since. It was a golden era.”

Like Foxton and The Jam, Secret Affair’s roots were in the punk era. But Page felt the musical revolution didn’t deliver the ideas he had himself.

“I didn’t buy into that ‘No Future’ negativity,” he says. “I felt more positive about what people could do – that part of the Mod culture influenced my music.”

Following the collapse of his previous teenage power pop outfit New Hearts – who played several support slots for The Jam in 1977 – Secret Affair drew on the influence of Motown, particularly in its use of brass, for its new sound.

The band’s calling card was the album Glory Boys, which is being performed from beginning to end by the band later on in this tour to mark its 35th anniversary.

Around the same time The Jam was further embracing the Mod sound with their third album, and first true classic, All Mod Cons – home to ‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street, Down In The Tube Station At Midnight and Foxton’s vocal take on The Kinks’ David Watts.

Having recreated the album in full while touring last year, From The Jam is now focusing on its follow-up Setting Sons, as one of three alternating shows across the country. This comes to Brighton’s Concorde 2 on December 30.

“We are trying to keep the shows fresh for everybody,” says Foxton, adding From The Jam will be playing a classics set – also known as The Public Wants What The Public Gets – for the Brighton celebration.

The band’s biggest departure in the last year has been a tour entitled That’s Entertainment. Foxton and Hastings strip Jam classics down to their acoustic basics, and mix them with tracks from Back In The Room, Foxton’s first solo album in 25 years.

“Russell had been playing those Jam songs on his own for a while,” admits Foxton, who had felt a little out of place when joining his longtime frontman on acoustic bass.

“It’s a testament to the quality of the songs that they sound good on an acoustic guitar. The vibe we get from the audience is amazing – you could hear a pin drop.”

Foxton funded Back In The Room through an online PledgeMusic appeal. The finished article features contributions from his From The Jam bandmates, as well as Steve Cropper from Booker T And The MGs, saxophonist Steve Norman of Spandau Ballet, and old comrade Paul Weller.

In the years since their 2009 reunion Secret Affair saved their pennies to record their long-overdue fourth album Soho Dreams – 30 years after their initial swansong Business As Usual. Both The Jam and Secret Affair bowed out in 1982.

“We’ve just heard that a box set is coming out in October with all four Secret Affair albums in there,” says Page.

“Because we are all self-financed the fifth album will take a lot of time. You don’t need £50,000 to make an album any more if you know what you’re doing – you have to do a lot of pre-production to get all the parts down.

“We will start writing at the end of this tour, but I think it will be another year before we see it come out.”

As well as the Celebrating 50 Years Of Mod Culture events, The New Untouchables Mod Weekender is returning to Brighton for the bank holiday weekend.

From Friday, August 22, to Sunday, August 24, there will be free daytime and ticketed evening events at The Volks Bar And Club, in Madeira Drive, Brighton, and ticketed parties at Komedia, in Gardner Street, from 11pm. Visit www.newuntouchables.com or www.komedia.co.uk/brighton.

Essential information: Concorde 2: Doors 7pm, tickets £16. Call 01273 673311. Brighton Centre: Doors 7pm, tickets £25.50. Call 08448 471515.

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF MOD CULTURE
Concorde 2, Madeira Drive, Brighton, Friday, August 22
Brighton Centre, King's Road, Saturday, August 23