Franz Ferdinand at The Olympia Theatre | Review

Franz Ferdinand at The Olympia Theater, Dublin, 23rd March 2014

“I’m on BBC 2 now, telling Terry Wogan how I made it,” Alex Kapranos says during a break in The Dark of the Matinee. It’s a fanciful idea to put on your debut album but Kapranos could have been a legitimate talkshow guest in the not-too-distant past.

He’d be lounging on Jonathan’s Ross’s couch, flicking his hair out of his eyes, telling the British public what they could expect from ‘You Could Have it So Much Better’. They’d talk theology, impregnable accents and the Mercury Prize. He’d come across as polite and charming, and everyone would be happy he was doing so well for himself. In 2014, he would be lucky to be on Graham Norton’s couch for a story or two from The Red Chair.

Franz Ferdinand haven’t slipped into obscurity in the nine years since ‘You Could Have it So Much Better’ was released, but the slide away from the public consciousness has been noticeable. A band once surely able to fill arenas, now must content themselves with Olympia-sized venues – though, given how the Dame Street venue is bursting at the seams, perhaps they could have filled another night.

What really strikes about Franz Ferdinand live is their familiarity; as though the particular part of the brain that deals with their songs has not disappeared, just been dormant for years to be awakened on a cold Sunday night in March. Early songs like The Dark of the Matinee and Tell Her Tonight, for example, make you want to party like it’s 2004 all over again.

It’s not just the classics hits either. Their new songs – Bullet and Evil Eye are both trotted out early – have an instant, hook-laden, familiarity to them even if they haven’t smashed the radio waves.

Dressed in similar suits – each an individual patchwork of black, white and grey – the band play the early stages to the backdrop of a grey screen with letters flickering repeatedly, like some form of concrete, communist airport lit only in red. It reflects the Nineteen Eighty-Four hints in new song Evil Eye and Right Actions.

It’s all too serious for Franz Ferdinand, though, and before too long the screen is flipped around to show shiny, silver panels. It’s now turned into a disco, and Franz Ferdinand do what they do best; making ‘music that girls can dance to’.

Guitarist Nick McCarthy is an interesting prospect onstage. With his haircut straight out of the Bay City Rollers and a way of holding his guitar and kicking out his leg borrowed from The Monkees, he powers out the riffs. Watching him play out the hook to Michael, alone, is enough to give the crowd second-hand repetitive strain injury. He does it with an energy and enthusiasm of a man half his age and somehow managed to keep it up for the full hour and a half.

Most of the time eyes are drawn towards Kapranos, a saviour like presence on stage – “…nailed above you dripping from my side,” as he sings on Auf Achse. Whether it’s hand claps, arm waves or just a little bit more energy; once Kapranos asks for it, the crowd seem compelled to give it to him as though they have no minds of their own.

He has the flair flashes or a rockstar too; taking Walk Away at his own pace, about one third the speed of the audience, or having his Jim Morrison moment on This Fire having climbed down from the boxes decorating the stage. He doesn’t talk a lot, but that’s no complaint. He just gets on with the entertainment.

It’s when the big hooks hit that it feels the Olympia is going to explode. When Do You Wanna? lands – the crowd, of course, chant along with the familiar hook – it’s hard to imagine a greater feeling of euphoria engulfing the auditorium. That is, at least, until you remember their big hit.

The intro to Take Me Out is elongated by the band, teasing, tempting, taunting, torturing the crowd while the band look out nonchalantly as if asking ‘what’s all the fuss about?’. The fuss is about one of the greatest songs of a generation, and one of the most recognisable hooks of all time. It’s a song only diminished in the last decade by the TV dating show that borrowed its name. Live, it’s sublime.

Franz Ferdinand offer a ninety minute barrage of hooks, hysteria and good times, the likes of which few bands can match. It’s a show that deserves an audience bigger than the 1,200 that can squeeze into The Olympia Theatre. They were right in what they said nearly a decade ago: ‘you could have it so much better’ with Franz Ferdinand.