Franz Ferdinand stays ahead of pack

October 17, 2005|Globe Staff

A funny thing happened to all those new UK bands on their way to becoming this year's Franz Ferdinand.

While those lean lads were perfecting their Gang of Four riffs, Franz Ferdinand decided it had no intention of vacating its place as that region's best breakthrough band. So this year's Franz Ferdinand remains Franz Ferdinand, the Scottish quartet that stormed the mainstream with tight, bright rock songs marinated in an ironic disco swing.

Before an Orpheum audience primed to pogo and bounce, singer-guitarist Alex Kapranos strolled on the darkened stage first, opening with the saturnine strains of ''Jacqueline." Spurred by Bob Hardy's chattering bass line, the rest of the band -- guitarist Nick McCarthy and drummer Paul Thomson -- cranked the song into twitchy rock territory. The show was well-divided between tracks from the band's self-titled 2004 debut, and its recently released sophomore effort, ''You Could Have It So Much Better."

Franz Ferdinand's unapologetically derivative sound channels that late 1970s moment when new wave and disco found themselves crashing the same parties, and one was just as likely to hear Blondie's ''Heart of Glass" in a dance club as on a rock station.

And as enjoyable as much of that music was nearly 30 years ago, Franz Ferdinand injected Saturday's performance with the same gleeful spirit. Save for the impassive but musically rock-steady Hardy, its members were as giddy as puppies. Absent was aren't-you-lucky-to-have-us-here smugness of such bands as Interpol, to whom Franz Ferdinand was once compared. From ''Come on Home" and ''Auf Achse" to ''What You Meant" and ''Do You Want To," Kapranos and McCarthy pulled every stunt in the rock star bag of tricks -- including leaps off the drum risers and playing on their knees -- but polished those cliches with effervescent cheekiness.

So confident was the band that it performed its biggest hit, ''Take Me Out," from the debut disc, midway through the show instead of saving it for the encore. Still, the show, which maintained its swagger for 85 minutes, came to a bracing finish with such swanky songs as ''Evil and a Heathen" and ''This Fire."

Earlier in the evening, another Glasgow quartet, Sons and Daughters, proved more fun to watch than listen to, since it seemed as if the band was playing versions of the same song for the entire set. Far better was the Australian trio Cut Copy, which surprised many with unexpected New Order-inspired dance grooves.