Franz Ferdinand Live at Malkin Bowl, Vancouver

Take Me Out, Matinée, Ulysees: Sharp Singles from Scotland's Finest

Sep 7, 2009

Franz Ferdinand fended off autumn rains on September 6 in Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC, with a note-perfect but-occasionally-rote performance of their biggest hits.

The rollicking opening of “No You Girls” and a cheery crowd decked out in waterproofs and wellies was, alas, not enough to keep the rain away from Franz Ferdinand’s outdoor set at Malkin Bowl in Vancouver.

By the time Glasgow’s art rockers made it to song two, “The Dark of the Matinée,” the skies had opened up for the umpteenth time that day. But the crowd danced and sloshed on. “Vancouver must be the only place where people will come out to a rock show in the rain....aside from Glasgow,” joked singer Alex Kapranos, and cheers emerged from under hoods and nylon. Let’s face it, even when damp, “Matinée” (from FF’s 2004 self-titled debut) is a great track.

Franz Ferdinand Singles and Goodness

Even if most of the band’s singles have that je-ne-sais-quoi-makes-them-sound-quite-so-similar, they are mostly great fun and eminently danceable. There’s something slick and likeable about FF – something found in Kapranos’ witty lyrics, their intelligent, artsy aesthetic, fab tempo changes and groovy rhythm section in Bob Hardy and Paul Thompson.

But with slickness often comes a feeling of functionality. It's that feeling where everything sounds excellent and looks excellent and there’s plenty of excellent rock posturing, but something's missing. To borrow the name of the band's latest album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand ...well, tonight, they were rocking the solid 7 out of 10.

Certainly, the mid-set pack of “Do You Want To?” (one of only three tracks tonight from their second, critically drubbed platter You Could Have it So Much Better), “This Fire” and Tonight’s “What She Came For” sounded as razor sharp as you’d expect from a band that just came off an extensive Green Day tour. But this fire wasn’t really out of control, was it, Alex? Not really, and a few tracks here just sounded a bit fizzly.

Take Me Out – of the Rain

But that’s not to say that Franz don’t occasionally play from somewhere near the top of Mount Awesome. “Take Me Out” (which the band has nicknamed on their set list as “The Scottish Song”) and latest single “Ulysees” were bouncing, sing-song, muddy foot-stompers. A slow, Bond-theme-esque “Outsiders” started out sleepy but wrapped in a thundering, four-person drum fest with all band members crowding around drummer Thomson and bashing away.

Moments of 9 out of 10 peeped through the clouds just often enough, so that by the time the group returned for its encore, it was almost a case of “Rain? What Rain? I’m just wet from an extended and relaxing shower!"

Among these glimmer moments was a speedy “Michael” (with Kapranos cracking wise about the smell of “BC weed wafting across the stage” before inhaling and sniffing loudly into the mic), a superfantastisch version of “Darts of Pleasure”, before the finale, the squeaky synth ramble of “Lucid Dreams” , which bassist Bob Hardy described in a Suite101 interview as one of his favourites to play live. Yes, Bob Ferdinand, it was indeed good. Shave off four minutes of the dance-musik noodling and you’d have had it nailed.

But now we’re just splitting Scottish hairs. It was wet, it was cold and fire or no fire, Franz Ferdinand were fun. Which makes it plenty good enough.

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