Ratboys @ The Garage, May 21st 2026

Last year, maybe the one before, a band called Ratboys were playing at the Windmill, which is a tiny music venue about ten minutes down the road from me.  Because it was at the Windmill, the ticket price was probably less than a pint.

At that point, I only knew the band from Black Earth, WI, a meandering 8-minute jam about getting lazily lost in Wisconsin backroads - and it was great, justifying every second of its not-inconsiderable runtime, but I was feeling lazy and it was only one song so I didn’t bother going.

God, past me is a fucking idiot.

In my defence, they had not yet released Singin’ To An Empty Chair, which is a shoo-in for best album released this year and will feature heavily in any conversation about best albums released this decade.  It was still a dumb-ass decision.

I did not make the same mistake this time, and fortunately got in early, as The Garage, which is a considerably larger venue than The Windmill, was entirely sold out.

Support came in the form of Former Champ, a Scottish janglepop outfit.  I’d listened to their one album before coming out, and enjoyed it.  I don’t know that they’re particularly distinctive from any other janglepop outfit, but the melodies are good and Claire McKay’s vocals are crystal-clean.

Former Champ, trying to get through the mix

Live, they were less impressive.  Clear guitar lines and vocals on record were turned into mush by the mix.  And this is not necessarily - or even likely to be - the band’s fault, venues have a highly annoying habit of muddying the sound on the support acts to make the main event sound better, but still a bit of a disappointment.  I like the album enough that I’d try them again at a gig they were headlining.

Second up was Sunday Mourners, who I’d also listened to and written off as fairly average post-punk.  But live, these guys killed it.  

Sunday Mourners, rocking

The influences are worn on their sleeve - I had to laugh when the frontman said ‘This one’s a Television cover’ because my dude, they are all Television covers.  You’ve clearly been mainlining Marquee Moon since you were seven years old.  But when the influences are that good and you’re doing such a good job with them, who cares?

It was spiky, standoffish, and full of shuddering beats.  Loved it, would definitely go and see them again.

Ratboys themselves absolutely owned the stage.  They do country-accented rock, not afraid of letting a song stretch out when it needs to, but just as capable of three-minute bouncers, and that variety was what made the set so good.

Obviously it was helped by the fact they were touring a truly superb album, and we got 8 out of the 11 songs on it, but there’s something special about a band who can so easily switch gears.  Too often, there’ll be a set full of rockers and a token ballad, or a parade of folk songs and then some fanfare when the singer briefly straps on an electric guitar.  Ratboys do whatever the hell they want and it still always sounds natural.

They kicked off with Open Up, Anywhere and Penny In The Lake, going from road-rock to dancer to singalong in just the first three songs.  The gentle Strange Love slid straight into the significantly more frantic Light Night Mountains All That, a song that sounds like rising paranoia in a horror movie.  

The centrepiece of the album and the set was Just Want You To Know The Truth, another lengthy meander, but this one through memories of a relationship, addressed to the partner no longer there, who left for unspecified but not good reasons, the one not occupying the empty chair of the album’s title.  Live, the pained guitar which sits as an undercurrent on the studio track came right to the front, a howl of rage and frustration at the one who ran away.

Ratboys, who I intend to see multiple more times in the future

The main set closed with Black Earth, WI, so I did finally get to hear it live.  It’s a song that would reward being stoned.  You could get lost to that song.  You could get lost with that song.  You probably wouldn’t care.  The guitar solo in the middle is the single best three minutes of music committed to record in the last five years.  It’s such a perfect thing to drift out on it was almost a shame there was an encore.

I suspect the next time I see them will not be as good.  There’s a perfect time to see a band - you’ve just got into them, you love their new stuff, and they’re performing every one of the bangers you want to hear.  By the next time, the band’s career will have drifted on like the solo in Black Earth, WI, and you have to hope enough of your past favourites make it onto the list.  But for me, this caught Ratboys at the perfect time.  Very glad I wasn’t lazy again.