Take Me Out!

The Commodore was sold out on Tuesday night for the return of Franz Ferdinand. The Scottish boys took to the stage and immediately brought the energy making the crowded venue scream. It was a simple show with no extra props, guest appearances, or special stage setup, just a couple of dudes with guitars and a wicked sound system with a few cool lights from the venue thrown into the mix.

The sound was amazing. I don’t know if this was because the last live show I saw was such a huge disappointment, but Alex’s voice sounded exactly like it did on the CD. This actually frightened me at the beginning of their set, only because it sounded good enough to be lip-synched. However, as the show progressed, my assumptions were corrected as the extendo-remixes of a few of the songs and a few off-key notes by the front man proved to me that this was the real deal. Even more exciting though, was Mr. Kapranos’ stage dive during the last song of the night “This Fire” while still playing guitar!

I wasn’t sure if one of the girls near us had her headphones on and was secretly rocking out to something completely different because she was moving in all kinds of strange directions that were off beat and bizarre. I am not sure if it was her interpretation of “Take Me Out” or if perhaps someone slipped a little E into her drink and she didn’t know it yet. Either way, she kept our table quite entertained when we weren’t singing along and clapping our hands.

Franz Ferdinand sang a good mix of their first and second CDs, with a new one due out at the end of next month. I have to admit I was a little surprised when they played “Take Me Out” and “Do You Want To” before the end of the show. I thought for sure they would save one of those for the encore, but instead they gave us big hits like that throughout the show, as well as “Michael” and “The Dark of the Matinee.” The boys from Scotland proved to us that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a fancy stage setup; all you have to do is come out and play your heart out.