The Unbelievable Rockingness of Franz Ferdinand

The year was 2004. Still jetlagged from a return trip (was it from India? Or the Maldives? Fickle memory can't decide), I entered my room eagerly anticipating the prospect of a nice warm shower. Oh but a surprise awaited me! My sister had bought a few new CDs, most by artistes we already listened to (like Badly Drawn Boy's Have You Fed The Fish- an OK but not overly exciting album) but one stood out. A black CD jacket with the words Franz Ferdinand on it. According to my sister, they were the hot new stuff. Oh boy. Were they ever! Franz Ferdinand were very much a part of the new wave of bands led by The Strokes (of whom I am a minor fan), but they had an infectious, dancecy vibe which was just brilliant. It really was a very fun album to listen to, the only downside being that a lot of the songs tended to sound a little similar.

Cut to 2005- the boys in stripes release a new album- You Could Have It So Much Better. True to it's title, it really was a marked improvement over their debut. It rocked harder, they played around with new sounds (particularly on the excellent Beatles-esque song Eleanor Put Your Boots On) and the first single, Do You Want To, was pure glee. Yep, Franz's sophomore album was a grade-A effort which earned regular rotation on my iPod.

So when they announced they'd be playing in Singapore this year, it didn't take me a nanosecond to decide to go. Well, the deciding factor was the price actually- $50 tickets was too good to be true! Though on hindsight, the $88 free-standing tickets were the way to go. The seats I got for me and my friends were up in the balcony- pretty far away from the band. But no matter. This was the first concert I'd ever paid to go see and it was so worth it!

I know understand the term ELECTRIFYING as applied to a band. These boys were the very definition of electrifying. Up on that stage, they weren't mere mortals like the rest of us in the audience. They were gods. Gods of Rock and Roll. Alex Kapranos, the lead singer, was a whirling dervish on stage, prancing, strutting and leaping about like he was jacked up on a barrel of Red Bull. The rest of the band was equally awesome. It seemed like each member of the band played at least 2 instruments each- for one song (I forget which) drummer Paul Thompson actually switched places with guitarist Nick McCarthy. And near the end of the 2-hour set (in which they only took 1 break, amazingly!), they did this thing where another dude- I think it was their concert drummer- started drumming along with Paul, creating a crazy-cool ruckus of percussive zing! As if that wasn't enough, a 3rd person (no IDEA who he was!!!) leapt onto the drums (not literally) to create a 3-way drum attack of epic proportions. It looked and sounded brilliant.

Perhaps the coolest part of the concert was seeing how sincere and likeable the band really was. They talked about how much they loved the food here and they actually invited EVERYONE to go down to their hotel with food so they could have a "food party" after the show! How cool is that??? Me and my friends didn't go cause we were kinda tired and I had an assignment to hand in the next day, but reports indicate that they were really friendly and chatted with all the fans who turned up for quite a while. Darn it I missed the chance to meet em! But I'm definitely catching them when they next come down, so maybe I'll get another chance then.

I didn't take pictures that night but lots of other bloggers did. Let's see, one guy got loads of photos and the setlist up on his blog. Someone else's blog has a very professional photoset of the concert. And some more on Flickr. Finally, a blog named Cirkusflea's put up a few VIDEO CLIPS of the event. Sweeeeeet.