In years to come this gig will be known as the Great Heckler Massacre of 2010. It was a mismatch on par with Tyson versus Berbick or the earthquake versus Haiti – Andy ‘Falco’ Falkous and Kelson Mathias of Future Of The Left verbally pummelling some hapless fool who just didn’t know when to give up / shut up. Onya dickhead, you did Sydney real proud.

I missed roughly half of Further’s opening slot due to the early 7:30 start time but managed to get there in time to see them do “Romance!” as well as a handful of new tunes, including one brutal brooder I believe was titled “Low One”. Spod star Brent Griffin was filling in on bass for Andy Cowland who was away on annual leave and acquitted himself admirably under the circumstances. No obvious mistakes. Which is more than can be said for guitarist/vocalist Matt Coyte, who butchered the opening riff of one song so bad he made the band stop and start over.

I stood outside and smoked during Talons set, mainly in protest at the fact that they got to play after Further – is there no such thing as paying yer dues anymore?

Future Of The Left hit the boards at full pelt, throwing the same killer one-two combo that opens their recent second rekkid, Travels With Myself And Another, “Arming Eritrea” followed by “Chin Music”.

Spitting chunks of bubblegum like a hail of torpedo fire, the trio whipped The Annandale into a reckless frenzy. Four-hundred-odd pairs of feet defied the stickiness of the carpet as voices united in singsong.

“Wrigley Scott”, “Small Bones, Small Bodies” and “Plague Of Onces” formed a hard and fast triple-threat of tracks from the first album, Curses! (2007). Seldom have melody and brutality made such sensual bedfellows.

Cut to sad heckler scene…

Some half-cut sucker for punishment down the front starts yelling a bunch of inane shit – shit about the band being Welsh, shit about their old band Mclusky, shit like total shit. Falco (guitar/keys/vocals) and Kel (bass/vocals) respond with a volley of insults much too clever and complicated (even nonsensical!) for me to remember. Yet nothing can quell this idiot’s vigour for humiliation, nor improve his horrendous sense of humour. He just keeps coming back for more.

In between bouts of bash the heckler, FOTL delivered a barrage of vein-popping pop. Falco switched from guitar to keyboards for “Manchasm” and “You Need Satan More Than He Needs You”, the latter providing a fun scream-along during the “does it fuck like a man?” bit.

At one point they gave the audience a choice of what song they wanted to hear – either “The Lord Hates A Coward” from Curses! or “Drink Nike” from Travels With Myself. Obviously the crowd were always likely to go for the older tune, but I was rooting hard for “Drink Nike”. Not only is it one of the best songs on Travels with Myself, I’d already seen them do “Lord Hates A Coward” on the last tour. But hey, you can’t fight popular opinion, so “Lord Hates A Coward” it was. Certainly not a dud second prize by any stretch, it sounded twice as vicious as the recorded version.

Another song, another cameo from the heckling dip-shit. At first it was fun watching such a lopsided battle of wits, but after a while it became tedious, which created an air of frustration. Without saying it in so many words, the band implied that it might be a good idea for someone to drag this obnoxious turkey out and give him a good kicking so everyone could get on with rockin’ out in peace.

Closing the set with “My Gymnastic Past”, the band returned for an encore that began with “adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood” and ended with the unreleased “Cloak The Dagger”, which unravelled into rampant chaos.

Falco let his guitar amp bleed noise, stabbed his keyboard with a drumstick, then started to ritualistically dismantle Jack Egglestone’s drumkit while he was still playing it. Picking up each drum and cymbal, Falco would move each piece around teasingly, daring Jack to try and hit it, before retiring it to the centre of the stage.

Meanwhile, Kel had gone for a crowd surf. I was about halfway down the room, over towards the bar, when he surfed right up next to me. Initially I refused to get involved in holding him aloft – I’m lazy and he was sweaty – but then he indicated via a sort of pointing and thrusting motion that he wanted to head over to the bar. Suddenly I found myself isolated in a big gap between the mob of people holding him and his intended destination of the bar. I had no choice, I had to help grab him or he would have been on his arse. I stuck my hands up in the air and immediately regretted the decision as I felt the fucker’s weight bearing down on me, pushing on my head as he stabilized himself on the bar. Once up there, he did some cute little dance that seemed to impress the crowd but wouldn’t get anywhere near my list of Top 50 Annandale bar walks. A few seconds later, he was back onstage, where Falco had finished disassembling the drums. Kel grabbed his bass and Jack jumped on his ad-hock kit and the pair made improv punk noise until it was time to kick everyone out the pub.

Final score was Future Of The Left – 187, Heckler – nil.