Published Oct 8, 2005
Apparently, my friends thought it was about time I got out of the house, ‘cause Christie came all the way down from a vacation in Santa Barbara to drag me out to the Franz Ferdinand show at the Greek Theater last night.
We got there at the end of the opening acts, which was too bad since the little we heard of the last opener was quite good. Next time I’d try to get there earlier, but we had a mellow evening and that was good. After getting a “grande” beer and a vodka tonic (if you know either of us, you know who drank which), we made our way to our unaccountably excellent seats.
Third row, near the left end of the stage (as the performers see it), we were right in front of the speakers, which probably explains why I’ve yelled a bit so far today. Apart from the permanent hearing loss, we had an incredible view, and I would definitely pay the relatively small cost of the tickets again, given that I see maybe a show a year.
The audience was quite excited to see our headlining act get onstage:
Franz Ferdinand came out strong and rocked straight away, with high energy, lots of noise, and sexy Scottish accents.
Alex was dreamy but it was bad-boy, dark-haired, rhythm-guitarist Nick who stole my heart.
Still, as a child of the early ’90s, I couldn’t grok why the pit wasn’t going with all these hard-driving songs. Heck, even the people in the seats (like us) were jumping up and down for “Take Me Out” and “40 Feet”.
Although, I’ll admit, people seemed completely lost with the material from the new album. I guess the lesson is that, four days after you release your new album, people probably haven’t heard it yet. At least not the kind of people who go to a mid-sized venue (if you really want fans, stick to the clubs, I’m sure).
Franz Ferdinand definitely earned a promotion in my book. They used to be “fun to listen to, good on the radio,” now they’re “wow, better live than on albums.” Not, say, to the extent that Jane’s Addiction is better live, but better in the same way, with talent and precision and tons of charisma.
(That is, to say nothing of the one song they had — something off the new album, so I’m not quite sure what it was — in which three people played the drums at once.)
Also, they looked great in their precisely-cut English suits. All men look good in English suits, and I’ll have to get rich enough to have a few of my own.
Mostly, I’m convinced that I need to let my friends get me out of the house more. I chilled out, I rocked out, I didn’t mind going all the way across town to the Greek Theater, and I definitely got into the music.
OK, I’m out of content but I still have two pics. So, here are the pics. Please presuppose the existence of clever stories and pithy statements framing these.
franz ferdinand rocks out, man! i’m sure it was a great show.
Do they rock heavily?
Dude, that link is fucked up.
Oui oui, monsieur!