Live review: My Ruin – Joiners Arms, 31st January 2008

We’re about halfway through this evening’s My Ruin live set, and Tairrie B is roasting some throw-back ape-man in the audience who decided to give her some misogynist back-chat.

“You know, it’s funny, man – because you look kinda like a rock and roll dude. But really, you’re just a punk-ass bitch. Now get the f*ck out of my show!”

Members of road crew and venue staff make haste to assist the guy’s exit – the crowd is very much on Miss B’s side, and things are not looking good for the drunk in the denim jacket. He’s hustled swiftly out of the building before he gets something worse than a shove from the audience, and Tairrie returns to her story.

A lesson for the uninitiated: even if you’re the sort of thug that would consider advocating violence against women, don’t do it at a My Ruin show.

My Ruin shows are different from other rock and metal gigs in a number of ways, but this complete zero-tolerance of sexist bullsh*t by band and audience alike is probably (and sadly) the rarest thing of all.

It’s that “the buck stops here” attitude that powers My Ruin as a band, and makes them such a powerful presence on stage. Tairrie screams her lyrics raw and untreated through a heart full of throat with an authenticity that comes from channelling personal experience – and which makes a lot of other metal singers sound fake by comparison.

Perhaps that’s why My Ruin never made it bigger than they have; perhaps listeners and industry alike are intimidated by this unbending woman standing up for herself and her beliefs. Whatever the reason, it’s a shame, because My Ruin are a quality metal band – and they prove it on the stage tonight.

Tairrie’s vocals are backed up by Mick Murphy on guitar, who delivers an uncompromising take on blues-tinged Southern metal, all fearsome doomy riffs and wide three-note bends. He loves to solo, and he does it damned well – complete with guitar propped on knee and facial gurning to accompany the more extreme screams and howls of his instrument as his fingers fly over the fretboard.

The rhythm section features Marcelo Palomino, hard-hitting veteran drummer from Tairrie’s previous bands Manhole and Tura Satana, and bass player Chris Lisee, and they build a strong framework for Murphy’s guitar to work over. But there’s a fifth band member that the uninitiated might not notice at first.

Here’s a clue – you’re standing in it.

The audience is very much a part of the band at a My Ruin gig, and that feeling of inclusion fuels the fierce loyalty of the fans. Tairrie will frequently pass the microphone to an audience member so they can sing the next line; not only do they know every word, but they scream them out with equal conviction to their creator, who also takes plenty of time to shake hands and interlock fingers with her fans.

Her willingness to share her misfortunes in an honest way also has a lot to do with it. During the performance of “Through the Wound” from new album Throat Full Of Heart [read the review here] , she peels back the elbow length glove she is wearing to reveal the scars from the recent car accident which nearly cost her that arm. Some might dismiss this as a plea for attention, but they’d be all wrong.

That’s the thing with Tairrie – she doesn’t want pity from these kids. She wants to tell them how she overcame and got back up again afterwards; she wants to tell them how she spat in fate’s face. She wants to tell them that they can do the same. That anger in her voice is the fuel for a personal transcendence.

It’s a similar sense of empowerment that lurks behind audience favourite and set closer “Made To Measure”, a scathing indictment of mass-media body-image propaganda that the crowd have clamoured for all night – and they go wild for it when it finally arrives. We all know the pain of feeling inadequate, of feeling ugly; Tairrie gives that pain a voice.

My Ruin have tapped something primal by articulating emotions and experiences that their fans can’t express for themselves. Tairrie is a big sister figure to a lot of the kids here, male and female alike. It’s not just the simple adulation that most rock stars receive – Tairrie’s fans genuinely want to learn from her experiences, to become more like her.

A lot of bands get described as being a mouthpiece for their fans, but few live up to the label. My Ruin have the honesty required to do the job; as the band leave the stage at the end of their set, you can look around and see in the faces of these kids that they’d do anything Tairrie asked them to.

And while there’s a lot of bands that can pull a crowd bigger than My Ruin, I’d be willing to bet they secretly wish they could command the same degree of devotion.