Franz Ferdinand
Do You Want To? Yes, Absolutely.
There are bands you see, and there are bands you feel. Franz Ferdinand have always lived in that second category, but tonight at the Barrowland Ballroom — their home turf, their cathedral — they ascended into something else entirely.
The room was already sweat-drenched before the first chord landed. Glasgow crowds carry a specific electricity, a collective willingness to surrender themselves completely, and when Alex Kapranos strutted to the mic in that singular way of his — all angular confidence and coiled energy — the place simply detonated.
Take Me Out opened things, obviously. It had to. The dual guitar attack hit like a freight train and didn't let up. But it was the deeper cuts — Eleanor Put Your Boots On, a slow-burn This Fire, an absolutely ferocious Do You Want To — that made the night feel genuinely special.
Kapranos is one of the great front men of his generation. He doesn't just perform; he inhabits. His gestures are theatrical without being camp, his eye contact with the crowd somehow personal even in a room of 2,000.
The Barrowland itself deserves mention. That sprung dancefloor, those fairy lights, the low ceiling that traps heat and noise and turns a rock show into something closer to a rite — there is nowhere better in Britain to see a band like this.
By the time they closed with a ramshackle, joyous Michael, the entire room was one organism. Drenched, hoarse, grinning.
I've seen a lot of shows. This was one of the ones.