A quick request. If you plan on downloading this and putting it on your YouTube channel or your own bootleg page - I don't mind. But a credit to this website where you found it and a link back to this page would be really appreciated. It helps me gauge which artists are popular - ie more chance of other restorations coming. Don't just steal it, cut out the intro and outro and take the credit. Thanks.
The Show
An
audience recording from the time. It sounded very much like someone had "remastered" it into fake stereo with most of the bass taken away (which often happens when people do this). Other than that, it was in pretty good condition.
What Was Done
As with all audience recordings, I removed some of the venue reverb "ambience" from the recording to leave more of the band's sound for me to work on. There was a brief cut at the end of 1 song which I smoothed over. Once that was
done, I got to work with EQ and the usual studio toys to bring back some of the lost low end, tame the high end so it wasn't as harsh and "tinny", bring back some
clarity to the guitars, bass and drums so they're a bit more audible and powerful, made the vocals a little bit louder, then mastered to make it clearer and more
powerful overall, and not so artificially wide. Once the master was complete, that process had inevitably increased some of the recorded mains hum from the PA, so where it's most audible (in between songs) I finished off by going into those parts of the gig, 1 by 1 and reducing that with a notch filter.
It's a great set, they were a great, tight band - totally not what you'd expect from a "punk band" - The Ruts were clearly more than that. I hope this restored set does them some justice!
The All Important Download/Stream Link
As always, the restored
and remastered show is available to download or stream for free - as a
single 320kbps MP3. Just hit the link:
Setlist
Savage Circle
Something That I Said
I Ain't Sofisticated
S.U.S.
Demolition Dancing
Backbiter
Out Of Order
Jah War
Criminal Mind
Babylon's Burning
Dope For Guns
Staring At The Rude Boys
H Eyes
You're Just A...
It Was Cold
In A Rut
Society
Encore:
Love Song
Human Punk
Supporting The Site
If
you want to support the work I do on these recordings, and (if you wish to) obtain separate, fully tagged 320kbps MP3s of this
restoration for less than the price of a coffee in return, or lossless
FLACs - or even a lossless copy on CDR - head on over to the Rewards For Donations tab
to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the
site. There is NO OBLIGATION to do so of course - you can take the
file on this page absolutely for free - but every single donation is
appreciated and helps me do more shows and update some of the
software I use as time goes by. Either way, enjoy the show.
Subscribe And Share
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(spam free) so you never miss news on which new gigs are going to be
restored and uploaded here; any news will be delivered to your inbox.
And your email address won't be sold on by me as a result.
And if you like this recording, please spread the news and share the page link to anyone you think might be interested - Facebook fan groups, web forums, Bluesky, Mastodon, X, Threads, Instagram are a great way of spreading the word - that way, I always find out which bands are popular and can do more shows by them in the future. So please tell ya mates about the site and this page! Many thanks.
And finally...
As many fans of music from this period will know, singer Malcolm Owen died just a few months after this gig, and in 2007 Paul Fox - the incredible guitarist you can hear on this recording - also passed away from lung cancer. Just 3 months before he died, The Ruts reformed for a short set, with Henry Rollins on vocal duties. It's a great set, not to mention very moving, given they all knew what was going to happen by then - a hell of a way to bow out. Inevitably that's now on YouTube so I thought I'd link to it here:
