Ruts DC – live at The Joiners

Ruts DC live at The Joiners, Southampton on 21.12.2023 supported by The Duel

A late move of venue takes this one from the larger 1865 venue nearby here to The Joiners (Venue blog). Here tonight with early 80s gig-going school/home suburb mate who’s now in Dorset – we’re back. Neither of us have seen The Ruts/ Ruts DC on one of their tours.

I remember deciding not to go on to see Ruts DC at a nearby venue with two other school mates, after we were turned away at the doors of Hammersmith Palais when The B52s gig sold out (November 1980). Schoolboy error eh… literally.

Original frontman Malcolm Owen had died of a drug overdose by then. That’s maybe why I didn’t go on to see the then new band without him. I had bought the first few singles when they came out – In A Rut and their top 10 hit Babylon’s Burning.

At 16 years old I even remember tippexing a patch on my straightened jeans with some self-made rips. and drawing The Ruts logo on… but no I didn’t see them until 2022 a few times when they supported The Stranglers on tour. Then Rebellion Festival 2023, but never on their own tour. This is it then. To be fair the band had a 24-year break after splitting in 1983. Not that that has altered their music, attitudes and lyrical approach.

Original guitarist Paul Fox died in 2007, leaving tonight’s line up of John ‘Segs’ Jennings on main vocals/guitar, Leigh Heggarty on bass and Dave Ruffy on drums – both supporting with vocals.

Tonight’s Support

It’s The Duel supporting this evening. A duo of Tara Rez and Paul Laventhol – guitars and backing loops with punk influences – heavy ones. Tara’s been singing and playing as the duo for 20 years, previously with Andy Thierum.

This is a good lead up to the main band – the short set flies by. All sounds so late 70s punk. I’m reminded of The Slits. This could almost be a London pub gig of my youth.

Ruts DC

The reggae and ska tracks cease and the security guy leads the band through the to the stage, punters parting for the torch beam.

My recent experience is that they are a very loud trio and this is a small 200 capacity venue so I was ready to be blasted, but my ear saving inserts are only temporarily required and can be pocketed for much of the set.

The set is peppered with classics that everyone here knows. That’s what we’re here for. S.U.S. is the first of these closely followed by It Was Cold. Early songs see Segs on guitar, later reverting to his bass.

With just three in the band the sound heavily leans on the bass and drums for the distinctive Ruts sound – the reggae beat and dub style comes in to supplement the late 70s pub rock style. It’s the apparent simplicity that makes the gig a winner: classic songs we know, no frills, no gimmicks, solid sound… and what a great little venue to see them in.

2016 track Kill the Pain is introduced with reference to original Ruts, Malcolm Owen and Paul Fox. It’s about what finished them – “without those guys we wouldn’t be here”. After the bright clean guitar of West One (Shine On Me) another dedication to the departed: Despondency with a very Killing Joke style guitar intro played for Geordie of Killing Joke, who died recently.

The reggae beat pumps up for Jah Wars – I just don’t hear enough live reggae sounds these days. Benjamin Zephaniah gets a name check: another loss. We aren’t done yet with the memorials. After the urgent Was It Something That I Said we soon get to that classic early single, In A Rut. In the middle of this one drummer Duffy breaks into a few verses of The Pogues’ Dirty Old Town, paying homage to Shane MacGowan – a choker as the audience joins in.

The last number in this well-crafted crowd -pleasing set is Babylon’s Burning. Now and again you hear a song live that you’d happily pay the entry fee to hear on its own. This is one of those.

The Joiners stage set up means disappearing for a bit before encores is too impractical and involves wading through the crowd a few times. Hence they ask us to pretend while they just take a breather.

Three more songs complete the set, including Never Surrender, and tonight’s wonderfully simple pleasure of seeing a classic old punk band that lit up my youth, in a great little venue, full of cheerful people, with the Christmas break nearly upon us.