Under the hazy lighting of the Opera House, a crowd of excited fans pushes ever closer towards the stage, each vying for that perfect spot. The air is redolent with sweat and spilled alcohol, and tangible anticipation runs through the crowd. As a guitar is strummed and a clarion chord sings through the air, the fans respond with appreciative whoops and cheers.
The Opera House was filled to capacity last Saturday, as eager fans swarmed in for a performance by homegrown heroes Born Ruffians. After touring North America and Europe extensively for their debut album, Red, Yellow & Blue, the trio is home again and currently recording their second full-length album, the majority of which they performed for the first time on Saturday.
Fellow Ontarians Meligrove Band kicked off the show, powering through popular numbers like “Everyone’s A Winner,” “Ages and Stages,” and “Our Love Will Make the World Go Round.” Their driving rhythms and catchy melodies were enough to elicit some admiring applause from the crowd, but the set was far too long for an opening band, especially considering that they were only the first of two acts of the night.
Indie folk-rockers The Acorn graced the stage next, surrounded by a tangled rope of luminous white Christmas lights that added an unexpected ethereality to their set. The Ottawa natives rarely receive the attention and acclaim that their music deserves, so it was refreshing to see the overwhelmingly positive reception given to them by the Opera House crowd—some of whom, judging by the wild screams, came to see The Acorn first, and Born Ruffians second. Their set mixed slow, melancholy ballads with powerful rock numbers featuring original instrumentation: two drummers created a polyrhythmic pulse over which the lyrical melodies and harmonies were woven. The band started off with more familiar tunes including “Hold Your Breath” and “Crooked Legs” off their most recent album, Glory Hope Mountain, and then introduced the crowd to new songs “Misplaced” and “I Made the Law,” which were equally well received.
Finally, after a brief set change (and with the venue now packed to capacity) Born Ruffians appeared on stage to an outburst of adoring clamour. The trio of Luke Lalonde (looking like an erstwhile Bob Dylan), Mitch Derosier, and Steve Hamelin jumped right into a set list that included old favourites interspersed with a bevy of new tracks. The Ruffians declared that they would be performing “about 80 per cent” of the promised upcoming album.
Creating an extraordinarily loud sound for such a sparsely populated stage, the boys opened the set with songs like “Barnacle Goose” and “Sole Brother,” playing with a somewhat spastic energy that was befitting of the yelping and hollering that pervades much of their repertoire. But it wasn’t until the opening notes of the single “Hummingbird,” the band’s most popular song, that the already excited crowd went absolutely wild. Feeding off the insatiable intensity of the crowd, the Ruffians, who evidently had a lot of pent-up energy after their prolonged studio stretch, wisely introduced some tunes off their new album at this point. Upon first listen, the new songs are much in the same vein as those off their last album (ridiculously catchy yet highly original) without sounding too repetitive of their previous tracks.
The set drew to a close as the band played “Little Garçon” and ended off with another fan favourite, “I Need A Life.” They returned with encore “Badonkadonkey” and the non-album track “Merry Little Fancy Things.” Before the boys left the stage for the final time, they lingered briefly to high-five members of the audience.
Despite the obvious adoration of their fans, Born Ruffians seemed genuinely surprised at the impressive turnout of the night. Perhaps even more exciting for the band, though, was the overwhelmingly positive response that their new songs received. At one point during a new number, Lalonde crooned, “I just wanna set the world on fire”—a daunting task for any young band. But with their loyal fans, original music, and electrifying live performances, give Born Ruffians a few more years and they’ll be well on their way to doing just that.
