LIVE REVIEW: Franz Ferdinand

This article is copyright of The Scotsman and used with their permission for this purpose only.

Franz Ferdinand

SWG3, Glasgow

****

Glasgow's Franz Ferdinand have always been steeped in the post-modern spirit of their art-pop idols, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, ABC, Pulp, and former supergroup collaborators Sparks (their 2015 album FFS is an underrated gem).

These are bands who sincerely love disco-friendly pop while operating behind a veneer of arch self-awareness. When done right - and Franz Ferdinand at their best get it absolutely right - the results of that approach are often rather glorious.

There was a whole lotta glory to be found at this sold-out homecoming party, held outdoors during the last sticky gasp of the summer heatwave. 

The set was packed with all their bangers: The Dark of the Matinee; Michael; Do You Want To; and, of course, Take Me Out (such is their assurance as live performers, the energy levels never subsided after the played that with 30 more minutes still to go).

But Franz Ferdinand are no mere '00s nostalgia act. Two of the standout tracks were plucked from recent album The Human Fear. Bolstered by a guest spot from rapper Master Peace, Hooked can comfortably take its place alongside the crowd-pleasing hits, as can the traditional Greek music-influenced Black Eyelashes (scissor-kicking frontman Alex Kapranos is half-Greek).

And I suppose you have to admire them for stubbornly refusing to correct the "So I'm on BBC Two now, telling Terry Wogan how I made it" lyric in The Dark of the Matinee, despite having presumably been told countless times over the years - by people like me - that Wogan never had a chat show on BBC Two, and that they could've easily replaced it with "Radio 2" instead.

But that's Franz Ferdinand for you. They shimmy to the beat of their own dance floor-filling drum.

LIVE REVIEW: Elbow

This article is copyright of The Scotsman and used with their permission for this purpose only.

Elbow

Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow

****

Elbow frontman Guy Garvey has a lot of charm and stage presence for a man who looks like Ed Balls shopping at Homebase.

But that, of course, is all part of this Greater Manchester band's mass appeal. They're unassuming everymen with big romantic bear-hugging hearts. No wonder they're so successful. I get it.

In a world overstuffed with earnest peddlers of arena-sized 'anthems', Elbow are clearly so much better at This Sort of Thing than most of their peers. They mean it, man.

It helps that Garvey is a good lyricist who, broadly speaking, belongs to a lineage of working-class northern songwriters which also includes Morrissey and Jarvis Cocker (but not Noel Gallagher).

During the first of three sold-out nights at the Bandstand they were embellished by two backing singers and a three-woman brass section, who at one point performed a warm 'n' woozy snippet of Gershwin's Summertime.

The baroque strings which occasionally adorn their records were handled by the keyboards (Elbow are like a Tindersticks you could take home to meet your mother).

Their default setting is nocturnal rain-swept ballads - set highlights The Birds and Lippy Kids are quintessential Elbow - but they do 'rock' at times. Adriana At Last, with its surging, swirling chanted chorus, suggests they're familiar with the bonkers '70s concept album 666 by Greek prog-rockers Aphrodite's Child.

And Garvey - who also works as a BBC 6 Music presenter - is an avuncular pro who chats to the crowd like they're sat in his living room.

I particularly enjoyed his running gag about spotting someone in the crowd who looks exactly like his brother Marcus. That's the actor Marcus Garvey, not the legendary Jamaican political activist, just in case there was any doubt.

Elbow, then. They're good company.

LIVE REVIEW: Public Service Broadcasting

This article is copyright of The Scotsman and used with their permission for this purpose only.

Public Service Broadcasting

Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow

****

Public Service Broadcasting are one of those bands who came up with a fairly distinctive idea at the start of their career and decided to doggedly stick with it. This is almost certainly the only way in which they resemble the monomaniacal likes of Motorhead and the Ramones.

As any regular listener of BBC 6 Music will tell you – if they didn't already exist, that station would have to invent them - PSB's retro-futurist shtick involves festooning their crisp synths and guitar-driven art rock with audio clips taken from old films, documentaries and news sources.

While this isn't an entirely original conceit - PSB are basically '70s Pink Floyd with a laptop and unlimited access to the BFI archive - the overall effect is often quite haunting and powerful.

But there's no denying that their second album, 2015's typically conceptual The Race for Space, is still the high watermark of everything they set out to achieve. Fortunately, it featured quite heavily during this balmy summer evening outdoor performance.

Although I quite like some of their music, I wasn't expecting to be particularly moved tonight, and especially not by the sight of several hundred people holding their twinkling white light smartphones aloft.

But when they did just that - in what would appear to be a band-endorsed fan ritual - at the precise moment during The Other Side when a late '60s NASA operative welcomes Apollo 8 as it emerges from the dark side of the moon, well, it was a genuinely magical moment.

The other spirit-lifting highlights: an unexpected cameo from a boisterous brass section, a joyous race through signature tune Go!, and every time guest contributor EERA blessed us with her crystalline Sandy Denny floating in space vocals.

In a word: cosmic.