It feels like just yesterday when one of my university flatmates sat me down to tell me some important news; that news being that he’d just listened to Franz Ferdinand‘s debut album and that they were the most exciting and important band he’d heard in years. He was the sort of chap who regularly changed his opinions so within a few weeks he’d disowned the band and his prior opinion of them, but for the next couple of years at least the band lived up to his initial praise. I was privileged to catch the band at their celebratory home coming show at that summer’s T in the Park, one of those perfect festival moments when the band, the location and weather all combined to produce a special moment.
Alas, like so many breakthrough acts of the era their commercial success waned after their initial albums, but despite a couple of line up changes along the way the band have carried on, with last year’s sixth album The Human Fear being their best performing in a decade. A trip to Leeds’ O2 academy was therefore in order to see how the Glaswegian’s live show compared to their early showings.
Kicking off with early single Dark of the Matinee, there was an intensity to the performance that suggested a band with the hunger to prove to the world that they were still relevant. New drummer Audrey Tait mastering the band’s iconic drum rolls that helped to define their sound, with the rest of the band as tight and articulate as ever. Squint from the mid point of the venue and it was possible to imagine that we were back in the mid 2000s.
From the start of their career Franz Ferdinand made it clear they were the sort of band who cared about the aesthetics of what they do – surely no other successful band has based so much of their visuals the Russian constructivist movement, so it was no surprise their live show was carried with a design that was minimalistic yet striking. With the drum riser shifted to the side of stage Alex, clad in pinstripe suit and lime green shirt, performed against a simple backdrop whose colouring alternated throughout, to which he and his bandmates pulling synchronised poses to great effect.
The highlights came thick and fast – Take Me Out turning the Academy into the largest and most focussed bounce along seen in Leeds in many a year, Do You Want To perfectly straddling the very fine line between dumb and brilliant, The Doctor proving to be a highlight of newest album The Human Fear. By the time an extended encore of This Fire closed off the night it was clear that not only had their breakthrough music stood the test of the time but their current output maintains their status as a must see band even if their career didn’t quite hit the heights my old flatmate predicted for them all those years ago.
Have you caught Franz Ferdinand live in recent times? Have you got any prophetic predictions about who will be the next big thing? Make sure to leave a comment below – and don’t forget to subscribe or follow on Twitter for more live music reviews
Franz Ferdinand performed:
The Dark of the Matinée
Audacious
No You Girls
Michael
Night or Day
Evil Eye
40′
The Doctor
Walk Away
Black Eyelashes
Do You Want To
Love Illumination
Take Me Out
Hooked
Outsiders
***
Darts of Pleasure
Right Action
Bar Lonely
Evil and a Heathen
This Fire
Alex Reviews Gigs 
Leave a comment