I’ve had tickets to see Franz Ferdinand since early September and last night’s show at Alexandra Palace reminded me of why I wanted to see them so desperately. The Palace is yet another one of London’s heritage buildings, easily fitting the most people in relation to any of the other venue’s I’ve been to so far. However having said that its capacity is impressive, its flat floor also means that it is much more suited to the exhibitions and conventions it is normally the home of, and not so great for seeing someone as great as Franz.

The support acts for the night included The Rakes and The Editors, two excellent indie rock bands who I can now thoroughly recommend but whose performances were far surpassed by the main act. The only other time that I’ve seen Franz was when I went to my first Splendour in the Grass two years ago, and even then it was difficult to make it inside the tent. When I saw them that time, it was just as they were getting big with their first hit, Take Me Out, and their progress reminded me heavily of the success that the Australian band, Jet, went through.

I like to think that there are so many other reasons that make them such great performers other than their catchy pop rock tunes which no other band seems to be able to reproduce. I am always impressed by bands that acknowledge the quality of their support acts, and Franz thanked both of their support acts probably with the understanding that it is difficult to make it in that industry, while at the same time, demonstrating their humbleness. Another great reason to see them live is that they have a fantastic stage presence. Last night for example, the largish stage was quite bare, yet for every moment of the concert, it seemed to be constantly filled with all their energy and solidly performed music.

The set was extremely well planned, taking plenty of their new album songs and mixing it up with a lot of the hits from their previous album. It was also probably most ideal for an audience that has probably had the widest age range I’ve seen some time, with enough mellow songs to chill out on, interspersed through their harder rock songs that resulted in a fair amount of moshing in most of the audience. Surprisingly Take Me Out was played during their main act while they finished off their night with an encore consisting of Jacqueline (1st album), Evil And A Heathen (2nd album), Outsiders (2nd album), and This Fire (1st album).

The Kua Rating: 8 out of 10