THE RUTS DVD SCREENING
London
Shepherd’s Bush Empire
January 25th
4/5
Since the monumental concert that took place last summer that amounted to guitarist Paul Fox’s final stand, the trickle of affection and recognition that in the Ruts we had a potentially world-conquering musical force has become – well, flood might be a strong word. But it constitutes a welcome reappraisal of a group who really were the equal of more celebrated peers.
That terrific gig – featuring a roster of punk’s good and great, has now been released on DVD. And on first viewing it captures much of the intimacy and emotion of the event. Of course, the highlight was the once in a lifetime opportunity to catch Henry Rollins walking a mile in Malcolm Owen’s shoes and do a tremendous job of it. And he’s back again tonight to compere events. But as a gut-busting entrée to the premiere, we have a traffic jam of artists here to pay their respects.
Day 21 – Jimmy Pursey’s new band - were first up. Jimmy is Jimmy to the nth. Closed with a version of ‘Borstal Breakout’ that was fun to hear. Alabama 3 injected a frisson of honky tonk irreverence into proceedings – doing a head count on still extant Ruts was the definitive moment of black humour all night. Dirty Strangers, Paul Fox’s old band featuring his son on drums, offered up an emotive ‘Love In Vain’. We’ll skip over P.A.I.N.’s set, thanks. On to the ever reliable TV Smith, who had never knowingly been undersold in a live context. The acoustic ‘Babylon’s Burning’ was a treat. Vice School – led by Beki Bondage with members of Girlschool – did a fantastic job on ‘Something That I Said’ but then murdered ‘West One’. JC of the Members/Disciples evoked the full majesty of ‘Jah Wars’, followed inevitably by ‘Sound Of The Suburbs’. Then, in the absence of Johnny Moped (I guess Brenda just wouldn’t let Johnny come out to play tonight) Captain Sensible tackled ‘It Was Cold’, which brought cheers of recognition, pinged through ‘Neat Neat Neat’ and then dragged Rollins onstage for ‘Staring At The Rude Boys’. Grand! Profits from the CD go to charity so treat yourself to one here: http://www.theruts.bigcartel.com/
Alex Ogg