It’s an early start and a packed venue for tonight’s gig featuring two of the greatest bands to come out of the musical explosion that was punk rock nearly 50 years ago. Little wonder The Fire Station is already approaching maximum capacity by 7.30pm as Ruts DC, tonight playing support to the mighty Undertones, can, and do, play venues this size as headliners.
Ruts DC don’t do slow, they still play like it’s 1979, and blast out a set full of the punk rock energy that sounds as fresh now as it did back then. Songs that for those of us who lived through those early days are ingrained in our musical memories. ‘Something That I Said’, ‘S.U.S.’, ‘Jah War’, ‘Staring At The Rude Boys’, ‘In A Rut’ and ‘Babylon’s Burning’ still burn with anger and are more than enough to keep any punk, of any age, here tonight satisfied.
But Ruts DC are a long way from becoming some sort of ageing nostalgia act and have continued to pump out albums as powerful as they did as The Ruts. ‘Kill The Pain’ and ‘Psychic Attack’ from 2016’s ‘Music Must Destroy’, the funky reggae of 2013’s ‘Mighty Soldier’, right through to 2022’s ‘Counter Culture’ that gives us the pounding, industrial soundscape of brooding opener ‘Faces In The Sky’, the slicing guitar from Leigh Heggarty throughout the album’s title track as Segs asks “What happened to the voice of freedom?” and the reggae vibes of ‘Born Innocent’. All rage against the status quo of todays society. All sit perfectly in a 2024 Ruts DC set and state without any doubt that the band are as relevant now as they’ve always been. The mosh pit may be tamer but that doesn’t mean the anger or attitude is.
The Undertones waste no time building up to their huge, crowd pleasing, instantly recogniseable, singalong hits. In fact they open with ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ and from it’s opening guitar notes you know that this is going to be a masterclass in the delivery of perfect, punky, poppy, banging tunes. Sharp guitars, huge jump around (foot tapping, depending on your age), manic paced beats and lyrics that condense into magical, sub 3 minute slices, the agony, trauma and heartache of teenage years.
Over thirty timeless songs in just over eighty minutes delivered by a band who clearly get as big a kick out of playing live now as they’ve ever done. The interlinking guitar work from brothers John and Damien O’Neill is unmistakeable, the driving bass and drum rhythms from Michael Bradley and Billy Doherty together with the voice of Paul McLoone, it’s clear that tonight The Undertones can do no wrong and there really isn’t a single weak point throughout their set. McLoone leaps around, high kicks, staring out the crowd, huge smiles while the original four members do what they do, brilliantly.
The set spans their entire existence and whilst often full of angst this really is feel good punk rock. It’s impossible not to sing along with the band as they tear through ‘Girls Don’t Like It’, ‘The Love Parade’, ‘Male Model’, ‘It’s Going To Happen’, ‘Here Comes The Summer’, ‘I Gotta Getta’, ‘Family Entertainment’, ‘Get Over You’, the huge, timeless ‘Teenage Kicks’ and more. ‘Thrill Me’ and ‘Dig Yourself Deep’ from their later career fit right in and have been live favourites for years. It’s impossible to imagine what else The Undertones could have done to make tonight any better. The more they play the more you realise just how many superb tunes they have in their repertoire. The main set flies by before they return for a five song encore. ‘Mars Bars’, ‘More songs About Chocolate And Girls’, ‘Jump Boys’, ‘Really Really’ and the always superb ‘My Perfect Cousin’ by which point there’s 800 people singing along.