There is no proper way to describe the crowd’s frenzy by the time Franz Ferdinand took the stage Friday night. The sold-out crowd at the Docks was drenched in all manners of bodily fluids and cigarette fumes when the Scottish foursome charged the stage. Sweat, beer, tears, and some may have even soiled themselves silly when Franz Ferdinand launched into a ferocious set, roaring through their entire debut album and a few nicely-executed covers.

The audience, a mix of high school and university students, was notably missing the indie-hipsters who had championed the band earlier this year. Those fickle fans were most likely to be found “discovering” the Arcade Fire back in the city’s downtown core. Instead, the boys of Franz were left with latecomers to their musical orgy, consisting largely of drunken frat boys and underage party girls with keys to daddy’s Lexus for the night. Crowd etiquette aside, which was woefully immature during the opening sets for the zippy Futureheads and the New Order-ish The Delays, there was no stopping the massive energy surging through the weed-drenched air by the time Franz came on.

It started off relatively standard, but once the band took a go at their stop-and-go hit single “Take Me Out,” all thoughts of a by-the-numbers show were gone. Franz followed with the one-two punch of “Jacqueline,” and then the combined forces of every hurricane in the last two weeks would not be enough to stop lead singer Alex Kapranos’ sexy enthusiasm or guitarist Nicholas McCarthy’s insane technique. The ground was literally shaking towards the end of their hour-long set, nicely filled out by an encore featuring the members of both opening bands.

Unfortunately, the Docks will continue to be a sub-par venue out in the middle of nowhere with poor crowd control. Yet, Franz Ferdinand could play a garbage barge and still draw hordes of eager fans willing to hold their breath for a shot to dance. With only one album to fill their set with, Franz Ferdinand still managed to entertain and enthrall the crowd, many who already knew each word and every chord. If the hard-touring band would be able to take a break sometime this year and get back in the studio with more material, there is no doubt they could reach stadium-sized venues next time. It was one of the rare shows where there were almost no scalpers outside the club. No one who had tickets to this show would want to give them up.

4.5* / 5*






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