Franz Ferdinand
» Franz Ferdinand announce Australian sideshows! - October 16, 2008
» Sunset Sounds - River Stage (City Botanic Gardens), QLD - January 8, 2009
» Falls Festival - Marion Bay, Tas - December 31, 2008
» Franz Ferdinand - Enmore Theatre, NSW - January 8, 2009
» Franz Ferdinand Live at The Palace - Palace, The, Vic - January 31, 2006
» Modest Mouse - July 25, 2011
» The Dandy Warhols - May 29, 2011
You have to hand it to these guys; they survived that whole guitar resurgence around the 2001 mark and have consistently grown bigger and smarter with every release. Tonight’s sold out, sweaty-as-bro show is no exception, with a bevy of Brits and an army of Aussies out to salute to the infamous Archduke’s favourite guitar heroes. Glasgow's Franz Ferdinand are the kind of band that makes hyper-intelligence look easy; rhyming 'laughter' with 'deference' (only possible with Scottish accent) and fine-tuning their indie-bombs before letting them fly at the masses in the form of neat three and a bit minute pop songs.
Tonight, however, sees a different strain of Franz, as Kapranos and his buddies decide to road-test songs of their third album (incidentally also dubbed Tonight) that nobody - bar the industry - has heard. It's a bold move, especially opening their set with the piano-driven balladry of Bite Hard, which turns into an all-out stompfest but takes a while to get there and tests the patience of a lot of old fans. But then it’s straight into one of those edgy riff-driven pieces off the last record, Do You Want To, and there’s fists pumping everywhere like it’s a football match. Which is essentially the point of the Franz Ferdinand live experience; to give people a great performance while making a great big hullaballoo out of it. Kapranos, for his part, refuses to sit still, bouncing around and attacking his guitar with zeal at any opportunity.
Meanwhile, the band does something they haven't really done previously; experiment. Alex spends a lot of time re-working some of his most famous deliveries, like 'The dark of the matinee is mine', as well as extending verse intros into guitar solos. The debut album closer, 40 Ft, gets The Doors treatment, with squealing guitar trade-offs, dynamic changes and meandering vocals that turn it into Franz' own version of The End. It’s like the bacchanalia has come to town, led by four men dressed in dapper clothes with accents. Of course, Take Me Out is fantastic, but really it's the newer material, especially from the second album that shines tonight. And with the band in top form, there's nothing better than Franz Ferdinand in January.
