Canadian duo Handsome Furs were obviously delighted to be playing in Melbourne on Thursday night and their crowd was as equally delighted. In their first ever trip to Australia, the husband and wife combo were out to show off material from this year’s Face Control, their second album. Whilst their time may have been short, they were certainly well received and performed a great list of tracks.

First on the bill was Rat Vs Possum, an experimental and considerably odd quartet from Melbourne’s northern suburbs. When you look this band up, you might find a quote from Dan Kelly, wishing “he was 21 and living on acid and baked beans again at the Rat Vs Possum gig.” Of course, that wasn’t this gig, but the idea is there – this band is otherworldly. With a stage littered in tom drums, animal sound effects and projectors going constantly with visuals (everything from hummingbirds to kids at the dentist), Rat Vs Possum took their audience of early comers into their own warped existence and gave them something remarkably out of the ordinary. Tracks that included harmonised wailing from all four members and that made use of all the percussion on hand were stand outs.

From captivating to plain frightening, it’s fair to say Handsome Furs fans might not have expected what was next. The exorcists of Melbourne town have finished with Young & Restless – now they can move on to Ouch My Face, the most appropriately named band in some time. The music is not supposed to be funny, but there is something very humorous to Ouch My Face (besides the name). Their mould of punk and metal just doesn’t seem like something you’d expect from the softly spoken front woman, Celeste Potter. Or it could be the other way around, given the set began with a trio of screaming mouths. Steven Huf on bass provided a similar oddity, unleashing his death metal growl from seemingly nowhere. As painful as the screaming was at times, Ouch My Face was damn fun to watch. Potter played guitar to a couple of hundred whilst thinking there are a couple of thousand – making for some exciting viewing.

When Handsome Furs appeared on stage, beaming with smiles, it was clear from the outset that they were going to be a likeable live act. By the end (which came too soon), they were definitely a lovable act. Having never witnessed the duo perform before, Melbourne fans were treated to an immediate and constant energy from both Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry. Opening with the intro track off their new album, Legal Tender began the type of performance that was to continue for the next hour. Boeckner played like a man having a seizure, twisting and thrusting about on guitar, whilst Perry danced as much as humanly possible whilst still managing to control the synthesizers and drum machine. During every song, Perry would try to get as much of her body off the ground as possible, with her foot often appearing behind her head as she balanced and thumped along.

Showing a genuine excitement for playing in Australia, the pair shared their love for cultural exchange, using “fully sick” to describe the crowd’s reactions and giving all the Canadian equivalents of “bogan”. There were the stabs, too, with Boeckner dedicating a song to a documentary of Australia that starred Mel Gibson: Mad Max. He said he expects to be met by armoured guys with mohawks by the end of the tour here.

As for the set list, it was a healthy divide of new and old, all of which were either about “being sad” or “doing it”. Because there was already an influx of MJ tributes, a tribute to the man “taken too soon by his own sexy hands,” David Caradine, cropped up with new song I’m Confused. Also getting some laughs was the story behind Nyet Spasiba, a song about fighting off Russian prostitutes at a breakfast buffet in Moscow. Throughout each song, Perry’s drum machine was a driving force, rattling chests amongst the crowd madly. In a dedication to Sydney, Handsome Furs Hate This City saw the drum machine in full throttle, as both members worked with Perry’s musical tools to build the song to its climax.

A brand new song, Agony, finished up what was the Handsome Furs’ encore of sorts, moving seamlessly between the various “acts” of the song (Boeckner promised eight of these but there wasn’t quite). The brevity of the set was evident at this point, yet unlike the annoyed feeling you usually get in this instance, Handsome Furs left the Corner Hotel contented – their genuine charisma, humour and energy obviously doing the duo many favours.