Franz Ferdinand @ Birmingham Academy – 8th March 2009

We almost didn’t get to review Franz Ferdinand when we found out the passes that had been sent by the PR company were in the post and the Post Office promised them for first thing Monday when the gig was Sunday night! Luckily, Andy from the Academy came to the rescue at the 11th hour and made sure there were passes waiting for us on the door.

The vibe for the night was set when the band strolled onto the stage wished us a ‘good evening’ and launched into ‘Michael’ a crowd stomper taken from the self titled debut album. The set continued at a frenzied pace with ‘Do You Want To’ which kept the crowd bouncing with arms aloft.

For me, the highlight of the set had to be ‘Take Me Out’, the band’s biggest single to date, which singer Alex Kapranos dedicated to Alexis (engineer on ‘Tonight’). The band then proceeded to jump around the stage bouncing off the crowd’s vibe.

The gig stepped up another gear for the remainder of the set with a mix of numbers from all three albums – ‘What She Came For’ a dance-rock track from 2009’s ‘Tonight’ album segued into ‘The Fallen’ with its irrelevant lyrics and off beat drumming.

With an hour gone the band left the stage leaving the crowd baying for more and they weren’t disappointed. They returned with ‘Jacqueline’ from the debut album and continued with ‘Lucid Dreams’, the epic track from ‘Tonight’

‘This Fire’ was the perfect choice to close a cleverly crafted set and took the crowd even higher with chants of “ Burn This City”. The four members of the band joined hands and took the crowd’s applause from the front of the stage.

Franz Ferdinand have already signed up for Glastonbury this year and, with the band on top of their game currently, roll on summer!

Review – Andy Whitehouse
Photos – Steve Gerrard

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