This slideshow requires JavaScript.

For once, I’m not sitting at home on a Sunday evening. Instead, I’m standing in a club in an industrial part of town, watching the interpretive dance moves of a random audience member (RAM). Steve Hewitt obviously also finds this compelling, because when he takes the stage with his new band Love Amongst Ruin, he remarks that he is having almost as a good a time watching the RAM as we are watching him.

He and his new 5-piece band have taken the stage after Zug-based support band Destination Rosie have underwhelmed us with their middling rock set. A melancholy instrumental piece leads up to their arrival through the crowd, and they immediately start off with a rocking ‘Blood & Earth’. Hewitt appears confident and at ease at the microphone, enjoying the spotlight and joking with the crowd and RAM. It’s clear that the band have tightened up their set remarkably since the beginning of their European tour a mere three weeks ago, and each song comes alive in way that their recorded counterparts don’t.

There is a large element of catharsis evident in this album, the songs painfully honest and raw, full of hurt and betrayal, as much a response to the events of three years ago as a ‘*&!) you’ gesture to everything that happened. ‘Come On Say It’ is dedicated to all the spliff smokers out there, and the Thin Lizzy cover ‘Got To Give It Up‘ is dedicated to ‘an ex-friend of mine’ (no guesses as to who that might be). Teresa Morini’s electric upright bass and Laurie Ross’s cello add a delicacy to ‘Away From Me’, while guitarist Steve Hove is clearly relishing his role front of stage next to Mr Hewitt. At the end of the evening Steve can’t resist picking up sticks to have a little play on drummer Keith York’s kit – he hasn’t been able to give up the sticks just yet (see his upcoming project, Polaroid Kiss) and probably never will.

After a solid ‘Home’ (the upcoming second single), Hewitt et al leave the stage temporarily, but return for an encore of ‘Bring Me Down’, a track which didn’t make it onto the album for goodness knows what reason, because it’s lovely, melodic and sweet, almost the best track of the evening. At this point Steve asks for requests for a final song from the audience (because they have played almost every song from the album with the exception of ‘Love Song‘), but adds before anyone can ask ‘…but we’re definitely not playing any fucking Placebo songs’ (as if anyone would dare!). And so seeing as it is the current single, they end with a reprise of ‘So Sad’ and a exhortation from Mr Hewitt to join them at the bar a bit later, before exiting the stage to hearty applause.

The inevitable Placebo comparisons can stop here – Love Amongst Ruin present a rockier, less glam and more real musical vision, devoid of the artifice and imagery that characterised much of his Placebo years (although, you know how I still love that).  Love Amongst Ruin is an altogether different beast, and one can imagine that it must feel pretty damn good to Mr Hewitt to be in charge of his own outfit after all these years. I end the evening entirely convinced of Love Amongst Ruin’s capabilities but a little sad to think that next time I see them it will surely be in a bigger, less intimate venue, because onward and upward is the only place for them to go from here.

Faux pas of the week – Placebo’s ‘Bitter End’ playing just before Steve Hewitt and co. go on stage…

Setlist: Blood & Earth / Alone / Heaven & Hell / Running / Away From Me / Come On Say It / Got to Give It Up (Thin Lizzy cover) / Truth / So Sad / Home / Encore: Bring Me Down / So Sad

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Further to my competition to win a SIGNED Love Amongst Ruin poster, I can now also add 2 more signed posters, and 2 SIGNED CDs to the pile of loot to be distributed around the world. It’s just like Christmas, isn’t it? (that must make me Ms. Claus).

So, keep those entries coming in!

As well as the answer to the very challenging question (what is the name of the first single from Love Amongst Ruin’s debut album?), please also let me know where you are in the world (this doesn’t have any effect on the outcome of the draw, it’s open to everyone, but I’d just like to know where you are coming from).

Answers to: highrotational [at] gmail [dot] com. Winners will be contacted on Friday 15th October 2010. All winners drawn entirely randomly, note.

Love Amongst Ruin’s debut album is out now.