Glasgow Indie New Wavers Franz Ferdinand Brought Their Hits To The Head Tour To Chicago

Aug 22, 2022 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

By Christopher David

Glasgow indie new wavers Franz Ferdinand finally brought their Hits to the Head tour to Chicago on Friday, delivering one of the year’s most electrifying performances by any band of any genre over the course of ninety minutes. One of only a few bands in the early 2000s boom of post-new wave indie rock that arrived with a bang and actually had staying power, Franz Ferdinand remain an anomaly mainly for having rarely strayed from their punchy formula of melody-driven pop, and it’s served them unbelievably well.

“Darts of Pleasure” led the set in terms of first-album bangers, and by the time the band reached the ubiquitous rallying cry of “Take Me Out,” the crowd was in an absolute frenzy; the post-lockdown concert world is still fresh enough around the edges to where seeing a sold-out crowd at this level of absolutely rapture was pure joy, and the band fed off of it the entire night, with frontman Alex Kapranos owning every inch of the stage, particularly during “This Fire,” a grand finale singalong that had the floor of the Vic practically shaking.

New drummer Audrey Tait was a welcome fit, and the band’s blend of danceable pop and sharper edged, post-punk material like the driving “Evil Eye” and rollicking roller-coaster “The Fallen” from 2006’s You Could Have It So Much Better were stylistically indiscernible from new single “Billy Goodbye” with its glam rock stomp and earworm chorus. I mean that in the best way—while bands do and should naturally evolve, Franz Ferdinand have managed to grow while staying acutely aware of their strengths and only honing their live show in the process, and while their first record promised great things, they’ve only gotten better with time.