Franz Ferdinand (Ricoh Coliseum, Toronto, October 18)
Just in case anyone got carried away assuming the entire city was awash in Franz Ferdinand fever, a 30-something woman conspired with a scalper minutes before the band’s stage time Tuesday night to bring us all back to earth.
“Who’s playing here?” the woman inquired, poking her head out of a cab slowing in front of the Ricoh Coliseum.
“Franz Ferdinand,” came the response.
“Oh, cute!” she exclaimed.
“Yep,” the scalper offered, anticipating a sale. “He’s here tonight.”
There was so much wrong with that exchange, one scarcely knew where to begin. Whether the gentleman in question thought he was hawking tickets for some sort of 1914 re-enactment, or else just picked a bad day to skip Grade 9 history, it’s evidently not time to put away those “no, not the Austrian archduke” lines just yet. Among new wave revivalists, girls who wanna dance and scenesters who haven’t yet disowned them, the Scotsmen are gods; they are not, however, complete household names.
Actually, Franz’s current level of fame makes touring tricky. They’re too big to play the Kool Haus or the Docks, the ghastly venue they graced last time they were in town. But they’re not quite as huge as some of us expected sophomore disc You Could Have It So Much Better to make them, at least not yet, which means the Air Canada Centre isn’t an option. And so they were left trying to make the most of a sterile minor-hockey arena most Torontonians have never set foot in.
That was no easy task. Pre-show, only half the floor filled, it felt vaguely like we were waiting for talent night in a high school gym. And opening with Jacqueline, the first track on their landmark eponymous debut, they seemed to be straining to make their presence felt. Perhaps suffering a bit of let-down having just played New York, frontman Alex Kapranos (looking a bit less metrosexual than usual) gave the impression of a tired man trying very hard to seem energetic.
Thankfully, Kapranos and his mates were pros the first time they toured; they’re even more so now, not least because the sophomore disc is ideally suited to their high-octane live show, and before long they had the place as electric as it could reasonably be expected to get.
It was a mid-set sequencing choice that, perhaps inadvertently, spoke to the strength of the new material. Naturally, breakthrough hit Take Me Out elicited a euphoric response. But when The Fallen was then given its first Toronto performance, the storming new song - still perfectly danceable, but far more sophisticated - thoroughly trumped it.
Curiously, they opted not to make use of either Eleanor Put Your Boots On or Fade Together, the two lovely piano ballads that grace the new disc — either of which offers a change of pace their debut didn’t. And Kapranos — generally a highly endearing frontman, particularly when he’s swigging from a whiskey bottle while hovering atop the drum set — could still usefully learn to properly sing a chorus live.
But that’s quibbling. Despite the sluggish start, they’re actually showing signs of getting tighter live — particularly with drummer Paul Thomson and bassist Bob Hardy no longer ceding the floor as much to Kapranos and guitarist Nick McCarthy.
As a live act, Franz are so far ahead of their new-wave competitors that they should be able to outlast the trend. Next time, scalpers might even know who they’re selling tickets for.
