Franz Enciende la Dinamita
-Franz Ferdinand, Auditorio Nacional,
México DF, 11 de Septiembre 2006

Despite the tight security, bag searches and frisks, hundreds of digital camera screens show tiny images of their focus: the dynamite spectacle of Franz Ferdinand. The rock star poses are just right, the pointing and pouting, using all the space of the huge stage, addressing the crowd in Spanish, and beyond this the most important factor is in place – the music rocks. Franz take us on a fast drive through virtually all of the second album, and those blistering highs of the fist album – the monster ‘Take Me Out’, the frantic ‘This Fire’… How many great riffs can one band have? A keyboard player joins the touring band, and the sound is thick, dense; Led Zeppelin go to the disco.

The last time we were here we played everything we knew, so this time we’re going to play something you don’t know’ announces singer Alex, and the band start a new song; short and very Scottish sounding.

Perhaps the Aztec drummers have been displaced from the Zócalo by the encampment, because suddenly there are 4 extra tom toms on stage, and behind each one a headdressed Aztec pounding the rhythm, urging drummer Paul to push further and further. This song, ‘Outsiders’, carries off into a pulsing, banging wave, reaching up into the September stars.

Franz Ferdinand have great looks and great hooks; crunching riffs and stylistic shifts. That great night in Tenochtitlan Franz Ferdinand said ‘Do You Wanna?’, we screamed ‘yes’ and they took us out.

-Rodney Huw Evans