tim finn reviews franz ferdinand at the beaumont

franz ferdinand review beaumont 4-27-09
Review: Franz Ferdinand

Monday night, a big crowd at the Beaumont Club saw a band living at its peak. It's probably safe to say that Franz Ferdinand won't be larger than it is right now, at least not in America. It drew about 1,200 people to a Westport nightclub on the first day of a normal work week, without a hit to speak of on Top 40 radio or a reality show to inflate its reputation. These days, that's a reasonable measure of success.

Unfortunately, this show also proved you can draw a crowd into a nightclub but you can't make it dance. The band was tight and taut, the music was vibrant and groovy but the crowd spent a lot of the night spectating. It took some coaching/coaxing from leadman Alex Kapranos to squeeze some participation out of the fans before him, including a hail of la-la-las during "Ulysses." Otherwise, most of them were as docked as Nick McCarthy, who is walking with crutches these days, nursing a sore foot.

The crowd was watching a good show: lots of melodic, well-crafted and -executed dance tunes that blended indie rock with new wave/post-wave and white-funk, some of them embroidered artfully with guitar and keyboard lines and riffs. FF initially drew some comparisons to bands like the Strokes, but its roots go back to rock/funk bands like INXS (and a little Talking Heads). They were also watching an impressive video show projected on a tall screen that spanned the width of the stage. Excellent touch.

This was my first show inside the new Beaumont, which looks like it is going through its own episode of "What Not To Wear." The first thing you notice: the abscence of stank. The second: the better use of space, especially around the expanded bar in the main room. And at least for this show, the sound was cleaner -- and on a night when the volume was as high as it needed to be. The merch table was selling ear plugs for a reason. It also looked like this was a date night for a lot of couples; the crowd was split about 50/50 guys/gals.

The boys from Scotland are touring on their latests, "Franz Ferdinand: Tonight," which, in some parts, veered significnatly from the formulas that made the first two albums so appealing. However, the live versions of the new songs blended well with the old, even the more adventurous cuts like "Lucid Dreams."

Hard to pick out two or three highlights because the band sounded stout all night and the crowd was relativley static -- enthusiastic and appreciative but on the proper side of rowdy and ecstatic. Two songs caused eruptions of singing and movement: "Take Me Out" and the closer "This Fire." This former two-stepping cowboy bar didn't go infernal all night, but at least for that song, it felt like fans were at least thinking about burning down the house.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

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