Saw Franz Ferdinand on stage this week. They played in the relatively small Tivoli venue (1000 people) in my hometown.
Nowadays they usually play bigger stages, like the Pinkpop festival or the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam. But they had some holes to fill in their tour schedule, to which Tivoli was the quickest to respond. During the concert they also referred to their first Dutch performance a few years ago, also in Utrecht but in the smaller Ekko venue (‘further down the canal’), for just 40 people (‘but a great concert’).
Though I like other retro guitar bands like Interpol and Editors a bit better, it was a nice show to attend. Franz Ferdinand certainly is a solid live band, the songs were played with a lot of fire and their singer has enough charisma. Moreover the audience was extremely enthousiastic, they were jumping and singing along from the first song onwards, which worked quite addictive. Of course they played all their hits like ‘Take me Out’, ‘Do you want to’ and ‘Darts of Pleasure’. It was a convincing concert, by a band who have remained relatively down-to-earth despite their succes.
A recent a-typical FF song and video I quite like: Jeremy Fraser (B-side to “The Fallen”).
