Regurgitator have a reputation for choosing their support acts carefully, and fans who arrived early to see what the band has been enjoying since the bubble were not disappointed.

First support was Brisbane three-piece I Heart Hiroshima, who have been getting plenty of airplay on Triple J as a next crop artist. Bassless and quirky, you would have heard their single Punks but watching them perform is something else altogether.

Suzie Patten sings and bangs the drums sometimes with sticks, sometimes with a tambourine, once or twice with her head, but that may have been accidental. When not singing, she engaged in furious discussion with someone over her left shoulder in an invisibility cloak, and in between songs, she welcomed the audience inside, inviting them to experience the dubious pleasure of Matt Somers ’ bodily fluids. Somers’ guitar sound was not noticeably affected by his injured wrist which he hurt at a carnival test-your-strength game. That is at least until the last song, when Ben Ely kindly subbed in to help with the more energetic guitar work.

Second support act New Pants are apparently new-wave punk from China, although it is strongly suspected that they are really tech-mo, judging by the earnest intensity of the lyrical delivery. Mix that, with frequent microphone swapping, some truly beautiful interpretive dance, a lot of guitar star jumps, judicious pose-striking and hair flicking, all to the background of the electroest ‘80s pop sound you can imagine, and you won’t be able to wipe the grin off your face, even as your left eyebrow hovers around your hairline in surprise, because you would never, never appreciate ‘80s karaoke-techno.

New Pants were thoroughly amusing and entertaining, even the hover-in-the-beer-garden-until-the-headline-act-starts types who stuck their head in the door for a look, were drawn inexorably towards the shiny-shiny on stage.

Trust in Regurgitator, they know what you like, even if you didn’t know it yet.

For their second last show, Quan Yeomans and Ely chose their good going out underwear, with Ely resplendent in silver spandex leggings, and Yeomans in a patterned white bodysuit whose rather large crotch hole he insisted was part of the suit’s design. Nice.

Regurgitator began their set with an appropriate choice, Blood and Spunk. Appropriate, because by the end of the 20-song set, it certainly smelt like it. Bands, please, if you care at all about your short fans, do not encourage a jumping, armpit-revealing kind of dance in an overcrowded Amplifier! Everyone likes the idea of swooning fans, but asphyxiated ones might attract some unwanted publicity.

Pheromones notwithstanding, the crowd managed to reach new heights of excitement with each song, as the band played through a mixture of old stuff such as Everyday Formula and Kong Foo Sing and new stuff like Drinking Beer is Awesome, and Romance of the Damned. They reminded us of the best bits of the last five albums including My Friend Robot, and of course, I Want to Be a Nudist. Possibly inspired by New Pants, some members of the audience indulged in a little interpretive dance of their own when I Sucked a Lot of Cock began. Regurgitator were joined by a fourth member, Seja Vogel also of Sekiden fame, who plays keys/synth and adds to the ‘80s rock theme of the latest album.

Ever indulgent of their fans, when the set finished and the crowd screamed for more, they got it, and I Heart Hiroshima’s drummer, and all of the members of New Pants dove off the stage to surf the sweaty crowd to the beat of Hullabaloo.

The Gurge are back, and better than ever.