while franz ferdinand was not the headliner of endfest 13, they were definitely one of the main draws for the event. they had a 45 minute set near the end of the show on the main stage where they basically played through all the songs on their cd:

cheating on you
auf achse
40′
jaqueline
take me out
come on home
tell her tonight
michael
dark of the matinee
this fire
darts of pleasure

since they’ve only released one cd, it’s not surprising that they just played everything from their self-titled release. of course, it wasn’t as if you were listening to the cd, it was an energetic performance, there were different mixes of various songs and some ad-libbing on the part of alex kapranos. the set started off kinda slow with what i think are some of the weaker songs on the album, but once alex started talking to crowd and started the bassline for jaqueline, it really started taking off. as expected, everyone went crazy when they heard the first few chords for take me out and totally freaked out again when they extended the end of darts of pleasure before finishing for the night.

this was also the first time that i really noticed that most of the ferd’s songs have a driving beat that keeps the songs moving. i groked this partly because the band was jamming hard on the guitars, but mainly because there were a group of teenage girls who appeared from nowhere and started dancing around us. it’s funny how franz ferdinand were indie only a couple of months ago and now the same girls that were into britney and the backstreet boys dig alex et al.

anyways, franz ferdinand were great live and if you have a chance you should check them out. they play with a lot of energy which makes even their lesser known songs sound like hits.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: concerts, seattle