Arctic Reviews

Whilst from my fan boy perspective it's great to see the Cockpit's anteroom full to bursting, that Future of The Left have managed to attract roughly three times the audience of last year's turn at The Faversham undoubtedly has it's drawbacks. Firstly, I can only actually see bassist Kelson Matthias. And added to that, my tardiness was rewarded with only being able to fit in the corridor leading to the venue's pish-stinking toilets.

I'd spent the journey down ruminating like a twenty first century Perrin, my bile spurred on by a passing infestation of fancy dress party goers, one inexplicably dressed up as a dice. The shop had run out of Spongebob I suppose. So I mused, if I was Reggie, was Andy Falkous my CJ? Some more contemporary responses would be necessary of course to the paraphernalia of working orthodoxy: I'd appreciate your feedback Falco, let's mind-map it Falco, fuck them all Falco. Let's go fucking postal. I then reasoned - rightly - that an artist's music is no more his property once released than it is that of your average white van driver. I have no middle class guilt to assuage. The revolution trust me, will be circumcised.

Back at the gig , a usual, if invigorating pattern emerges. Falkous and Matthias open with a throttle wide open on their barbed-wire guitar fuck chassis: "Arming Eritrea", "Chin Music", "Wrigley Scott". They pause for breath. As ever, they're highly quotable, disaparaging hecklers giving them two fingers and claiming to be sponsored by those fine northern vendors of cholesterol-on-a-stick, Greggs. Matthias acknowledges the support bands and hails the experience of touring as "Twelve men performing together who could all earn more money at Argos". And then, that's the nub, isn't it?

Future of The Left are what people used to call "Tight" in a live context. And musically, especially in the droning bass sludge of "Small Bones, Small Bodies", "Manchasm" - and of course the pure evil of "You Need Satan More Than He Needs You" - they're much, much more than their early Fall/Holy Bible-era Manics on record experience. But there is a difference, one probably very few would recognise and probably that only a sad fuck like me who's been on his own to this gig and the last would claim to recognise. There's nothing right about talented musicians with something to say playing to nobody - even if it is something about fucking your mum - but watching Matthias goof off with the audience here you're inclined to think about just how much ambition to be rock stars they actually have. Whereas the Fav, rightly or not, felt like grass roots altruism, this sold-out room, no matter how small, means something to all three of them, make no mistake about it. This band have horizons, just ask the poor bastard from the NME who had to ring Falkous to tell him that Travels With Myself and Another was the 17th best album of 2009 in their reckoning. Must've been like being mauled by a daffodil-carrying cairn terrier.

Back on the bus home, I'm beginning to reconsider selling out. In it's strictest hardcore terms, becoming "Mersh" was the cardinal sin. Wanting it was like admitting defeat by the precepts of the system. Future of The Left are still an visceral, thrill-a-second assault on the senses. But you get the feeling that as they're lying in the gutter munching another steak bake, they're dreaming of the stars