Concert Date: Sunday, 2nd May 2004.
Review Date: Monday, 3rd May 2004.
Review Date: Monday, 3rd May 2004.
Endless touring, interviews, video shoots; Franz Ferdinand have been in constant work mode for the last few months. I arrived outside the Ansom Rooms not in high hopes - I had a feeling that fatigue might come into play tonight.
Openers Sons And Daughters and The Fiery Furnaces were nice enough, the latter sending the crowd to sleep with their repetitive playing of post-punk craziness. The only thing I can recall that their lead singer, Eleanor Friedberger resembles a female Frank Zappa.
Coming onto the stage, Franz Ferdinand, led by the ever delightful Alex Kapranos, the group looks as if they've just come back from a dressing session with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. Dressed in an assortment of hip art-cliche clothes, you wonder whether there's a good chance that they wear those clothes day to day. With their look, they emit some kind of metro-sexual aura. You don't know whether to worry or not.
Opening with Cheating On You, the boys are not pussyfooting around, they're here to rock. Tell Her Tonight keeps the momentum going with angular beats. Guitarist Nicholas McCarthy is hyperactive swaying back and fro endlessly throughout the show, strumming his guitar in double time.
The thing I noticed quickly about Franz Ferdinand is their growing confidence. I first saw the boys perform live in February at the NME Awards Show in Cardiff, and you could see that they were still getting used to the spotlight that was shining brightly in their faces.
Now you can see the band have totally changed from the 'what are we doing up here?' look. Now they've grown into the shoes that they have been asked to fill. Even the bassist, Robert Hardy, who seems the shyest of the lot, seems to have grown in confidence. If you've seen any of the promotional photos of the band, he looks as if he doesn't know what he's doing up there in the limelight. Now he believes he belongs in the situation he has been placed in.
The pairing of Auf Achse and Dark Of The Matinee are next, which brilliantly compliment each other. The slow burner of Auf Achse with it's repetitive lyrics of You hear her, you can't hold her and You want her, you can't have her open the way to current single, Dark Of The Matinee.
Jaqueline and Love and Destroy lead their way into Take Me Out their biggest hit and most familiar song. Although the song gets the biggest cheer, the band don't need to rely on this one tune to keep the crowd happy, and this is a testament on how good their self-titled debut album is.
Come on Home leads into Michael, a song implying all sorts of tendencies, it somehow fits the lineup of the band. Darts Of Pleasure rounds up the set perfectly.
The encore brings the band back to the stage in front of cheers and clapping. Lead by a thumping drum solo by drummer Paul Thomson, the boys jump into Darts of Pleasure B-Side Shopping For Blood and then quickly into This Fire.
Overall, a outstanding success. I didn't see one bit of the fatigue that I thought might have settled into the band. I was worried that the endless touring might have taken it's toll. But what Franz Ferdinand showed tonight that they're here for the long haul. Long live Franz Ferdinand!
