Bar on the Hill, Newcastle University
Friday May 31, 2013 :
The Bar on the Hill at Newcastle University was the last show of The Ruben’s national tour before they headed to the US. The drummer, Scott Baldwin, did the sound check himself, psyched by everyone in the audience brimming with excitement. The sold out room cheered at the stage, waiting patiently for the Rubens to come on. The Margin Brothers and their matching jawlines finally joined him, grinning as if they were playing a show with ten times the audience.
The first most admirable aspect was the lighting. The colours were impressive as hell, casting a new dimension to the stage, the audience and the sound. The range in lead vocalist Sam Margin’s singing knocks your socks off, and the band as a whole really had it together, with seemingly no flaws at all. ‘Be Gone’, ‘The Best We Got’ and ‘I’ll Surely Die’ sounded and looked phenomenal, brought on nostalgia to the many diverse ages of the crowd and was welcomed by a cheer for each song. After ‘Cut Me Loose’, the Rubens had us convinced that any more new material would be as mesmerising as their previous killer releases. Their repertoire is so impressive, considering we never even heard the EP.
Their first ever released single ‘Lay It Down’ was laid down last in all it’s whimsical and emotional majesty. The opening notes created such an atmospheric wonder that you couldn’t help but be whisked away in the song, a slight disillusionment that it’s just you and them in the room. The entire band could show that they still loved playing this song, and the audience obviously loved hearing it.
After a gap void of music and a heap of chanting the boys came back on and played ‘Don’t Ever Want To Be Found’ and the anticipated ‘My Gun’, accompanied by a dude who thought it might be a good idea to crowdsurf. It wasn’t – nobody would have a bar of it. The Menangle band completely engulfed their audience from beginning to end, I feel lucky to have seen such an authentic act who we can only predict are only going up.
Reviewer: Jamie Nelson
Photographer: Chrissy Kavalieros
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