Metro Theatre, Sydney
Friday November 15, 2013 :
As news broke on September 16, that AJ Maddah’s Harvest Festival had been cancelled, indie music lovers throughout Australia were forced to face the devastating prospect of missing out on the chance to see their beloved favourite band. Fans of festival headliners were hit hardest, with Massive Attack, Primus, Volcano Choir and Goldfrapp all refusing to playing Australia’s capital cities without their spots at the top of the Harvest bill. Short of declaring a state of national emergency in the aftermath of the announcement, as rumours swirled around the “real” reason for the apparently popular festival’s cancellation (see AJ Maddah buying into former rival Big Day Out), Glaswegian indie-rockers Franz Ferdinand came to the aid of their fans promising that they would return to Australia as planned.
So on an evening when, in an ideal world, roadies would have been putting the final touches on the Harvest main stage in the Domain, Franz Ferdinand, made good on their promise, playing to a sold out crowd of Franz devotees at the Metro Theatre in Sydney.
Visiting Australian shores on the back of the release of their latest record, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, Alex Kapranos, Nick McCarthy and Paul Thomson and friend of the band, ‘Scott’, standing in for the bands regular bassist, Bob Hardy, who couldn’t make the trip, played a solid set featuring tracks from their now near decade-strong back catalogue.
Setting off from recent ground with their latest single ‘Bullet,’ the lads moved swiftly through their four LPs in the earlier part of the 17-track set. ‘No You Girls,’ ‘The Dark of the Matinée,’ and ‘Do You Want To’ each gained a wild reaction from the crowd early on in the night, no doubt spurred on by Kapranos’ impressive onstage moves. The rest of the set turned out to be a good mix of old favourites and current hits, with a surprising highlight appearing midway through the set when ‘Can’t Stop Feeling’ morphed into a very convincing cover of disco diva, Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’. The only notable absences from the night were ‘Michael’ from their debut record and ‘Lucid Dreams’ the lead single from 2009’s Tonight: Franz Ferdinand.
Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action sees Kapranos wearing the producer hat for the first time under the moniker Prince House Rabbit, with help on a handful of tracks from Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor, and Björn Yttling from Peter Bjorn and John. Whether it’s a matter of some elements of Kapranos’ production style not lending themselves perfectly to live performance, or just an outright rejection of the more polished pop sound of the lead singles ‘Right Action’ and ‘Love Illumination’ from older fans, there was a noticeable shift in the mood of the crowd between new and old material – I caught quite a few members of the audience ducking to the bar during ‘Brief Encounters.’ Some of their new stuff just felt flat.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, standing at the back of the Metro, hearing hundreds of people drown out the sound of McCarthy’s guitar while singing the riff of ‘Take Me Out’, seeing excited punters moving as a single mass at the foot of the stage is the stuff rock shows are made of! Despite some of it being nearly 10-years-old, the band’s older material was what won me over on the night and what made it a great show.
A set of such varied reception does however make you wonder how things would have gone down in front of a more varied crowd. A venue like the Metro, with its club show vibe, is bound to draw long-time fans who want to hear every track off Franz’s self titled debut and You Could Have It So Much Better, whereas a festival crowd might have been stoked hearing current radio hits. Perhaps Franz would have been better at Harvest than they were at the Metro on Friday night. I guess we’ll never know.
Reviewer: Amelia Parrott
Photographer: Chrissy Kavalieros
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