REVIEW: The Rubens make em say “yeahhhhhh”

By corispelling, March 28, 2013

ARTIST: The Rubens
VENUE: Hotel Café
DATE:  Thursday, March 21 at 8:00pm
COST: $10
DEPARTED THE SHOW FEELING: sometimes the Aussie’s just do it better.

The best part about post-SXSW? The floodgates open and a mass exodus from Austin bestows Los Angeles with copious amounts of good international bands. Case in point: The Rubens, who are currently blowing up the triple j charts back at home in Australia.

These four dudes (three of which are brothers) headlined an early set at Hotel Café in Hollywood to a very packed house. Although it looked to be mostly industry folk it’s pretty damn hard to get anyone in this town to check out an early show, no matter who it is. Just over a year ago a little known artist named Lianne La Havas performed a FREE early set at the Bootleg Bar to only a handful of people. Cut to today: she just sold out two consecutive nights at a 900 capacity theatre.

Aaannnnd we’re back to The Rubens. The point of my digression is that you just never know who will blow up and when. The Rubens have all the qualities it takes to bring it to the next level. Building up a solid story abroad and then throwing themselves back at the states would be a solid first choice.

Within their 40 minute set The Rubens commanded the stage which made it abundantly clear: these guys aren’t messing around. Perfecting a sound that is a laid back hybrid of The Strokes, The Black Keys, and heck the The Zombies, these boys are on a mission. I’m eager to see how quickly they book their return ticket to the states. There is a crop of amazing new bands coming out of Sydney and Melbourne with the same surf/prog-rock thing happening. I believe a massive invasion needs to happen STAT.

Of course at the end of it all, it doesn’t hurt that all the guys in The Rubens have those Aussie good looks. You know the ladies (and the gents) love that shit.