Picture this: 6.30pm, half an hour before the Enmore’s doors open for this gig.  Hip teenagers and stylish twenty-somethings are slouched against walls outside, sitting cross legged, smoking cigarettes, trying to look as though they don’t care at all about the millions-selling, globe-conquering band they are about to see. Even as doors open, there’s not a mad rush to get to the front of the stage as with other bands. The crowd seems restrained and civilized and I stroll casually to the front right hand side of the stage. An hour and a half later, as skinny Melbourne electro-rock upstarts (and Franz Ferdinand’s best buddies) Cut Copy attempt to get the crowd moving or at least look interested with their synthesizers and pounding drums, the too-cool hipster look is still plastered across many faces in the theatre. 

However, at around 9.15pm, the lights go down and Franz Ferdinand (drummer Paul Thomson, guitarist Nick McCarthy, bassist Bob Hardy and singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos) take to the stage. The crowd cheer and the indifferent looks of the audience begin to fade. As the band play the first delightfully messy riffs of This Boy, the crowd holds their collective breath for the famed pause in the song and Kapranos stops, poses, and purrs: “That’s right.”

On cue, the black backdrop falls to reveal the huge Franz Ferdinand logo, the lights flash, and the real show begins. Whatever restraint the indie audience was holding onto has all but vanished: the crowd in front of the stage starts dancing, and I turn around and see that even those with seated tickets are jumping, singing, and cheering.  When Kapranos yells “Sydney…d-d-d-d-doooo you want tooooo?” I find myself screaming with joy as the Scots launch into the fun hit Do You Want To? from their excellent second album You Could Have It So Much Better. A steady stream of hits ensues (I had forgotten about a little song called Take Me Out – the crowd went nuts) and other, more obscure gems, like the b-side Van Tango and the surprise inclusion of Eleanor, Put Your Boots On (Kapranos’ ode to girlfriend Eleanor Friedberger of New York band the Fiery Furnaces).

Kapranos is a true showman; he struts, poses, dances, shoots imaginary guns and converses in his strong Scottish brogue just enough to make the audience feel included, but not too much that they feel bored. Franz Ferdinand are tight musically and as a band, interacting onstage with each other and with the audience; winking, smiling and nodding at the fans, urging them on. Franz’s set manages to be a fairly even mix of old material (although ‘old’ seems an overstatement for songs from an album released in 2004!) and new album songs – eight songs from Franz Ferdinand and seven from You Could Have It So Much Better, with one or two B-sides thrown in.  Songs such as Darts of Pleasure, 40’, Tell Her Tonight (sung almost entirely by guitarist McCarthy) and The Fallen keep the audience dancing, and even the token slower songs Walk Away (in which drummer Thomson plays electric guitar, leaving tour keyboardist Andy Knowles to take over the drums), Come On Home and the sweet Eleanor… (during which McCarthy plays a divine piano) are executed with such enthusiasm and joy that they too become thoroughly danceable. Franz’s aim has always been to create music for girls to dance to, and they have certainly succeeded, even gone one better by being a band that girls and boys can dance to. They cater for the boys with their last song, Michael, a tongue-in-cheek tune about man-love in a disco. As the dark, sexy riffs of this song begin, I find myself thinking how much I don’t want this gig to end. But after the last, sweaty note, the lights go out. The crowd start cheering and stomping their feet for more.

The band come back to uproarious applause, and launch into the rollicking Evil and a Heathen, but the true highlight is their final song for the night, the closing track of their second album, a heady guitar-trip called Outsiders. Thomson bangs his drums with a tambourine, and eventually the versatile Andy Knowles joins him, pounding at the drum kit with drum sticks, and after him, a roadie joins as well. The three drummers play a glorious, almost tribal beat as Kapranos shoot hand-pistols and wails “Love’ll die/and lovers fade/but you still remain there…”  The continued use of his fingers as pistols is a strangely appropriate image – the iconic riffs keep firing, the beat is banging, the crowd is screaming, and as the last euphoric note is played and the band join hands and take a curtain call-style bow, it’s clear this band have killed tonight.  Franz Ferdinand is conquering the world, and after the show it is clear from the unashamedly grinning faces that Sydney has become their latest victim…and we love it.