By: Carissa Aguirre
Franz Ferdinand made the second stop of their tour in Houston on Friday, August 5th at White Oak Music Hall. This was a show I had been excited about for a while. I used to listen to Take Me Out on repeat in high school and seeing them live has been a goal of mine ever since. I’ve always loved their sound and hearing them live was exactly what you‘d expect from the Scottish band. If you are a fan of Modest Mouse, The Strokes, The Black Keys, or Arctic Monkeys, you will most likely like Franz Fredinand.
The tour started August 4th in Dallas, Texas to promote the Hits To The Head album released earlier this year. The album includes a compilation of 20 songs both new and old, and is a perfect representation of their music over the years. It includes songs off every album they have released, so even if you were an older fan, the concert was still just as exciting.
They started out the show with The Dark of the Matinée from their self-titled album and a personal favorite of mine, No You Girls off their 2009 Tonight album. Lead singer Alex Kapranos led everyone in singing along to almost every song. Any time Kapranos was not singing, he would move around the stage and get closer to the edge hovering over the front row. Despite his serious facial expressions, guitarist Dino Bardot looked like he was also having a pretty good time jumping, kicking, and moving any chance he got.
After being in the packed, dancing crowd downstairs, I decided to watch the rest of the concert from the balcony. From there you could see the entire light show of lasers and the shimmer of the disco ball scattered across the back of the stage. Red and blue lights flashed down onto the band while a row of bright white lights behind them illuminated the entire room. I can’t even remember if at any point the room wasn’t consumed by the lights.
The rest of the show was filled with dancing, clapping and a whole lot of chanting, and when the beginning riff of Take Me Out started playing, the crowd went wild. This has been their most popular song since it came out in 2004 and it showed. Everyone was singing so loud that it overpowered Kapranos’ voice. These moments are my favorite at concerts because you can look at anyone next to you, no matter who they are, and just sing to each other.
They ended the show with This Fire off of their 2004 self-titled album, as the crowd repeated “I’m gonna to burn this city, burn this city” The band still has a good handful of shows before they start touring in Europe and I hope they bring the same energy to the end of the tour. Everyone planning on seeing them deserves to see them like Houston did! And, I heard, if you stay after the show, there’s a chance you might be able to meet them.
⎯
