Franz Ferdinand: Without respite

With a crooked frame at the back of the stage evoking the avant-garde graphics they've used on the covers of some of their work, the quintet opened the night with "The Dark of the Matinée ," a number that, incidentally, hasn't lost an ounce of charm more than twenty years later. It was the first episode of a performance that continued to spread happiness among the already somewhat tired audience: spectators who, following the singer's advice, quickly broke away from etiquette, following the concert standing up, singing and dancing from the stalls. The gig oscillated mainly between songs from "The Human Fear" and recaps from their debut album, thus forging an intelligent balance between logical nostalgia and the defense of new material that fit perfectly into the script of a relentless performance.

With a post-punk spirit and extreme skill in targeting the skeleton of the staff, Franz Ferdinand relies fundamentally on the immense charisma and stage presence of its leader, the elegant Kapranos. The musician handled the bouzouki in "Black Eyelashes ," a track from the new album in which he seems to pay tribute to his Greek ancestors and which, from what I've seen, evoked something similar to a Mediterranean Pogues. Among the rest of the new material on the program, the piano details stood out in pieces like "Night or Day" and "The Doctor," which they began to unravel with a certain mysterious veneer, as well as the very well-rounded "Audacious" at the beginning of the encore.

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As for the more storied songbook, the hits never stopped coming. The communication between artists and audience was immense, epic even with the guitar-driven "Take Me Out ," in a similar vein to what had happened minutes earlier with a healthily primal "Michael ." In addition to the joyful dancing in "Stand on the Horizon ," it was also lovely to deal with the unleashed communal singing in numbers like "Walk Away " (it became almost a camp fire ) and "Do You Want To ." The dramatic aura surrounding the opening of "Jacqueline" also had an impact. The night ended gloriously unbridled with "This Fire" and those credo-like verses that go " This fire is out of control / I'm gonna burn this city ." It's a pity, given the storm that's been raging these days in various parts of the Iberian Peninsula.