Cut Copy, TV on the Radio, and Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand…one of my favourite CD’s of the past year…so, when I saw that both Franz Ferdinand and The Killers were playing in town within 10 days of each other, I dove for the laptop and got to TicketMaster as fast as I could. …apparently I wasn’t quite as fast as I’d hoped…however, I still scored 6th row in the balcony for Franz Ferdinand. And not in some dank Coloseum either…in the home of the Symphony Orchestra. I was seated 6 rows up in the balcony…

Now, I’ve been trying (but only in a 1/2-assed way) to find out just who the “With Guests” were gonna be for this show…but couldn’t seem to find any information…

There were two opening acts tonight. The first was an electronica-rock trio called “Cut Copy.” These guys were really cool. I haven’t heard anything like them before. One guy on drums, and the other two up front playing bass, guitars, and both taking turns at the table creating all manner of Electronic loops, samples, beats, and various other sounds and noises… I’d have to hear more of their stuff to say anything else even remotely insightful, but I thought it was pretty cool. A couple of years ago, I probably wouldn’t have liked it, but I’m a little more open-minded these days. Also, there were times when it just plain reminded me of U2’s “Pop.”

After wandering around between sets, I went back to my seat and wondered who the techies were for the next band that were onstage drinking beer…that’s when it hit me that the techies were the band…

The next band up… TV ON THE RADIO!

While I had heard of them…that was about it. I couldn’t have told you a single thing about these guys before today…I probably still can’t tell you anything that important either… (which makes me wonder why you’d bother to read this review…)

They have a cool sound. It’s sort of a southern-blues meets alternative-rock with a whole lotta soul (but they’re not soldiers….hahahahah….err…oops…wrong band…). I liked that they weren’t afraid to do different things with their music. They played two songs that were in 6/8, instead of in 4/4. Both songs in 6/8 started with the lead guitar player using a jingle-bell percussion stick. (You know…the one you used in Grade 6 when your class did Jingle Bells at the Happy-Winter-Sparkle Festival….formerly known as the Christmas Concert). The first song with it, he started by hitting his guitar with it. The second song with it, he handed his guitar off to the drummer…and then used the bells as well as beat-boxing in a rhythm track of his own. The singer did some whistling on this song, and on a few others. One thing that was a bit odd, was that the bass/keyboard player stood with his back to the crowd throughout the whole set…just stood there facing his cabinet…the lead guitar player also spent a lot of time on his knees in front of his amp. I’m not sure what that was about, b/c he wasn’t getting any feedback from it…so, what was the point? Oh well…it looked cool when he did it…that may well have been the only reason for it…

So, TV ON THE RADIO…check ‘em out…

…..then, another intermission…another trip to the potty, and another beer…

The Franz Ferdinand Review…

Let me get this out of the way first. I thought they played great! Lots of energy! Did a really good job of getting the crowd excited, and how can’t you do that when you have such a fun album to perform from? But…here’s my problem…check out the setlist…

1. This Boy
2. Darts of Pleasure
3. Do You Want To
4. Auf Achse
5. What you meant
6. Take Me Out
7. Villain
8. Matinee
9. Walk Away
10. Come On Home
11. Fallen
12. You’re the Reason….
13. 40′
14. Michael
15. Evil & A Heathen
16. Love & ?
17. Outsiders
18. Fire

….now, there are probably two things you are wondering:

1. “Gee CK, how did you remember the set so perfectly?”
2. “How come I only know about half of those songs?”

• Issue #1: How did CK remember the setlist so well?

Because I got it from the stage…sheesh people, how hard is it to walk from your seat down to the stage and ask someone on the stage to give you the setlist that is there?

Funny story though…I asked a tech on the stage-left side if I could have the setlist down there which was for the bass player. He said, “What’s a setlist?” I directed his attention to the piece of white paper taped to the bright red floor only 2′ away from him…not 40′. He picked it up. DIDN’T EVEN LOOK AT ME AGAIN…walked away from me, handed it to a security guy, and said, “Give this to whoever you want to.” The security guy had the old WTF-look on his face, and just shoved it right into the hands of some clueless dude in front of him. Now granted that guy was excited…but I was rather pissed off.

So, I walked to the other side of the stage. After some persistence, some security guys telling me “You have to leave now,” a tech quietly picked up the setlist that was used by the 5th member from the side of the stage, and handed it to me!!!

• Issue #2: Why do I only recognize about 1/2 of the songs on that set-list?

Answer…FF’s new album was just released yesterday. A fact that I forgot about until show time. Because had I remembered, I would have gone down to the store formerly known as The Virgin Megastore and attended the autograph session that they were hosting. So, here’s the thing…almost every other song on the setlist is from the new album. The crowd went from rocking out to a song that they know….to kinda grooving to a song they’ve never heard before. I know you have to promote the new album…but dudes….NONE OF US HAVE HEARD IT YET!!! Play more songs that we know!

The encore was a four song set, which started off with three more songs that we’d never heard before…they really started to lose me there. The first song was cool, it had this sort of Jim Morrison/Doors thing going on…but…you can’t expect us to be with you through a set with this much unknown material.

When they played “Take Me Out” the place went wild! That’s what I think they should have focused on. Reminding me why I love their (old) album so much…and making me think, “Gee…I want to get the new album, since they play the old one so well!” They didn’t even introduce the new songs with one of those, “Hey, this is on the new album…it was just released…hope you like it….” I would have loved to hear Jacqueline, and Tell Her Tonight in the set…and was hoping that they were going to be part of the Encore…

I was also trying to guess what song they would do a cover of…I love it when bands do covers…it’s just so damned cool… …but they didn’t… I understand that they need to play the new album…but I think they could have done a much smarter set list.

Tied into this…one of the things that U2 and Green Day did so well, was to slightly alter the arrangements of the songs that we all know and love…lengthen them…make us wait for the big moments by adding a verse or chorus or bridge… FF didn’t do this. Songs that could have (and in my opinion SHOULD have) been drawn out, giving extended rock-out time…were not altered at all…Not until 40′. That was the first song that didn’t go almost exactly like the arrangement on the album.

Another thing that I think Alex (lead singer) missed on was his improv’s. As a singer myself, I know that you cannot and will not sing the songs exactly like they are on the album. Most U2 fans with bootlegs and multiple concerts under their belts have come to love those moments where Bono changes something in a verse or chorus. But, he usually keeps all of the really cool parts the same. The soaring melodies usually don’t change. But Alex didn’t sing all of the high parts that we wanted to hear. He sang a lot of stuff lower down, and so some of the big choruses seemed….lacking. “Come On Home” and “Michael” stand out for me in this regard.

So, for onstage energy and performance I give them a very good rating. But for their poorly-ordered setlist, I do not give such a good rating. ….overall, I give the show 2 C-cups….oh, no….wait…that was the black bra that got thrown onto the stage by a girl down in front….sorry…

I give the show a B. It was *most* of the songs that I wanted to hear, with very few musical problems (tempos from time to time, but that’s understandable). Nice support bra…errr….acts….support acts… And really only the setlist issue that I’ve highlighted here.

….Next week….”The Killers”….stay tuned….