Who: Future Of The Left
Where/when: Nijdrop Club, Opwijk (near Brussels) – May 14, 2015…
How was it for me: I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that tremendous Welsh noisemakers Future Of The Left would play Belgium. Just out of the blue. No announcement of new material nor a full tour, except for a couple of festival performances, on their website. My guess is they just don’t care about social media, fans will find them anyway anywhere. So here they are, in a cosy cultural club (thank you, Nijdrop) in a small village near Brussels. Still alive and still bloody kicking after their fourth and rousing 2013 fan-funded ‘How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident’ album (Spotify link below).
A couple of power chords in and you remember immediately again how awesome intense this hardcore quartet rocks. A wall cracking cocktail of metal, hard rock & hardcore, horror noise and post punk kicks. Hallelujah ! They sound like nobody else but themselves. They created their own metal drones and concrete melodic rock over the years. Master of satire, frontman Andy Falkous, still leads the angry troops with a samurai sword between his teeth.
Before eating “David Cameron and his fascists pigs” for breakfast he dedicates a song
to the man. “Any Metallica fans?” he asks, a bit later, with a grin. Metallica? FOTL makes those colossal capitalist fakers sound like a third-rate pub rock outfit. Falkous‘ ‘losers’ list is endless. His anger is genuine. Meanwhile Julia Ruzicka tortures her bass guitar like only she can. Enormously loud and tremendously sexy. Whether she likes it or not she’s a star ! One of the coolest around. Jack Egglestone sends rowdy signals to his crowdy family in Cardiff via his drums and guitarist Jimmy Watkins is more off than on stage, he’s a man of the people.
After 10 years and 4 albums FOTL serves you a hard rockin’ greatest ‘clamor & turmoil’ hits set. They end the concert in their trademark “Megadeth medley” like way: long enough to have the time to dismantle the drums and to disperse all parts all over the stage while everybody’s still playing on and off the podium. Brilliant, just brilliant !
Grandios, mad finale…
FOTL: Website – Facebook – FOTL – Twitter
Noise, maestro, please….
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(concert pics: TUTV!)