Review: Ruby Gill at Four5Nine

Ruby Gill at Four5Nine
w/ Sugar Wife, Symmetrical Dogs, Angie Colman
Thursday, September 4, 2025

On Thursday night, Joburg-born and Naarm-based musician Ruby Gill brought her Kissing The People I Want To Tour to the narrow Four5Nine. Through her introspective lyricism, tender vocals and natural musicality, she steered the audience through a reflection on human relationships and our current political landscape. Having played her latest album, Some Kind of Control, all over Australia since its release in March, Thursday’s audience was fortunate to hear the full album in its most resolved form.

Damien Goerke from Sugar Wife kicked things off with warm, distorted acoustic tracks, cutting vocals, drum machines and easy banter with the crowd, inviting those outside the door to enter the space for the early sets. His set peaked on his final song, when Angie Colman ran onto the stage to join him for their 2022 duet, Slack.

Symmetrical Dogs followed, with a live performance that held a fragility and intensity that enraptured Four5Nine, despite the absence of their drummer. Mike’s dexterity on the acoustic guitar built a complex foundation that vocalist Claire amplified with the rich tone of her vocals. Claire contrasted hushed, whispered phrases with louder outbursts, pushing the boundaries of her vocal expression at both ends. Joining them for the gig was Leah Grant, who layered vocals with Claire to build a whirlpool of sound.

Taking the last support slot was Angie Colman, who played a touching lineup of songs that, following a recent breakup, embraced her state of mind with frank transparency. She moved between acoustic and electric guitar, playing with an ache that called the audience close.

At half-past nine, Ruby Gill walked onto stage, jumping on keys to open her set with Under The Flying Foxes, on the Last Night Of Summer, a slow track that was as sonically serene as its title. Watching the crowd, couples held onto each other. A man wiped away a tear. Reflect. That’s what the night felt like: an invitation for the audience to sit within themselves for a while and relate Ruby’s introspection back to their own lives.

Shifting into Space Love, Ruby picked up her acoustic guitar and gave the audience their first real glimpse of the vocal command she harnesses, from her delicate runs into falsetto to the firm, spoken repetition of “I need space, I need space, I need space.” Her artistry had the audience attentive, careful to pick up the pieces of meaning she extended.

Talking about her relationship with control, Ruby shared that when producing the album and during the first stages of her tour, she didn’t believe the words she had written for her title track, Some Kind of Control. A song about gaining agency over oneself and one’s body. But recently, she found a change in herself, finally aligning with the words she was projecting.

A choir of voices rose from the audience as Ruby sang over the light strums of her guitar, reflecting the harmonies on the recorded track. The energy picked up, and people seemed to snap out of their daze, to realise the room went beyond the intimate space between their minds and Ruby. When she sang, “It’s a fine line between what I knew then and what I know now,” her points on coming full circle echoed.

Ruby was back on keys for How Chimpanzees Reassure Each Other, a song listing the ways she would like to be loved (something most people haven’t quite figured out), and To What Do I Owe My Pleasure, a meditation on self-purpose and outside expectation.

Throw Your Lucky Coins On Me was performed as a poem, with Ruby admitting she forgot how to play the track. But the piece didn’t lack in this form. As she spoke, she carried the audience in her palm. And with her introduction to the unreleased Fishing Is Not About Fishing, a song she wrote on the tour for her father, the audience saw how casually imagery flows from her.

This storytelling carried through to The Flood, a captivating track about a cyclone on South Africa’s side of the Indian Ocean. After watching debris and white-brown water sweep across the shore, Ruby wrote The Flood as an example of disaster and man’s attempt to keep control over nature. The track showcases Ruby’s musicianship and ability to manipulate sound to capture emotion. Her out-of-breath vocal created an air of urgency and anxiety that reinforced the song’s importance.

Ruby invited the audience to sing along to You Should Do This For A Living and was met with a palpable excitement. When Ruby sang, “I can handle the heat,” the audience belted, “but get out of my kitchen!” Ruby looked floored by the crowd’s response and said, hand to heart, “That makes me emotional.”

Ruby’s politically charged and candid Room Full of Human Male Politicians was a gem. Releasing her frustration on the effects of current world politics on women, the audience fell still, absorbing Ruby’s sentiments and frank review on the matter.

The night ended with Touch Me There, and a room full of people singing “I haven’t been kissing the people I want to,” after Ruby asked them to join in if they shared the feeling. And to end it all, despite the audience’s plea for an encore, Emmagen Creek rounded out the night on a note of tenderness and human love.

She exited with a humble “thanks,” leaving the audience to process all that her transparent and thought-provoking music stirred up.

It was a beautiful, evocative performance from a deep-thinking, deep-feeling songwriter.

PRUDENCE ACKRILL

Photos by Linda Dunjey