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Franz Ferdinand returns to Jakarta cheekier than ever
Franz Ferdinand’s recent concert in Jakarta was rather under-attended but the crowd were a passionate bunch, making the show more intimate and meaningful.
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Pairing up: The recent Franz Ferdinand concert in Jakarta was part of the band’s promotional tour for their new album, Always Ascending. (The Jakarta Post/Seto Wardhana)
I
n the past decade, Glasgow’s indie rock band Franz Ferdinand tirelessly worked to diversify their sound into something more electronic and disco-based. Their 2018 album, Always Ascending, showed a more polished electronic and beat-laden sound that was ripe for remixes, but retained their charming, boyish indie band character.
Franz Ferdinand set themselves apart from others from the beginning, starting with their Mercury Prize-winning debut album Franz Ferdinand in 2004, by incorporating their brand of cheekiness and retro-disco influences into their slamming rock music, making them more memorable than most of the boring, uninspiring United Kingdom indie rock bands that littered the mid-2000s.
In their last two albums, 2013’s forgettable Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action and the more enjoyable Always Ascending, they ventured deeper into the nu-disco style popularized in the late 2000s by American electronic band LCD Soundsystem. It seems the right direction for them as it accommodates their dancey and well-dressed ambition.
It is a shame that a band so hardworking to constantly reinvent themselves received so little attention here.
For most in the Indonesian indie scene, Franz Ferdinand will always be the band behind “Take Me Out”, a ubiquitous staple of karaoke-style DJ sets used by the cool scene DJs who want to flex upon their indie nostalgia. Ask most indie kids here to name any song by Franz Ferdinand after 2006, they will probably strike a blank.
But it is not the band’s fault though. They did not really expect or ask to be reduced to one-hit wonder status, they just started off with a hit that became too big.
The band maintained that momentum, albeit with slightly less hype, with their 2006 sophomore You Can Have It So Much Better, but by their third album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand ( 2009 ), the hype and the interest in the band started to diminish.
The Jakarta Post remembers witnessing their Jakarta show back in 2009 when they played the Playground dance music festival in Ancol, North Jakarta that featured well-curated dance acts as Chicane, Sasha and Peter Hook.
Franz Ferdinand was the headliner of the night, but it became very, very obvious that many of the crowd were there mainly for “Take Me Out”.
When the band launched into newer material or deep cuts, there was a considerable lack of energy from the crowd, who were unfamiliar with the new songs or unwilling to get into it.
Shame though, as that night, the band delivered a top notch, positively high-energy performance that ended in a percussive jam to the Tonight single“Lucid Dreams”.
The vibe of their 2018 show in Jakarta, which took place on Nov. 30 at the Tennis Outdoor Senayan arena, was fortunately not a spectacle of the same kind of crowd indifference seen nine years ago at Ancol.
As per the Indonesian crowd character, sing-alongs were frequent and loud, to the delight of band members Alex Kapranos, Paul Thomson, Julian Corrie, Dino Bardot and Bob Hardy.
“We feel loved, you feel loved. Here in Jakarta, we feel we’re surrounded by the people we love,” frontman Kapranos said at the end of the show.
And what is not to love? Franz Ferdinand are a live band of formidable stature, capable of delivering the good vibes even if most of the audience aren’t familiar with their newer or forgotten cuts.
Standout 2006 single “Do You Want To” and show closer “This Fire” was undoubtedly the show’s highest point as the fun little song jetted the crowd and the band to happy, love-filled jumps. Similar cheeky cuts as “No You Girls” and “The Dark of the Matinee” came with the humorous theatrics of the band onstage.
The band’s biggest song “Take Me Out” appeared somewhere toward the end, but was not the conclusion, and this act undoubtedly tested who were real fans of the band.
Obviously, the song got the most cheers and hype, but the people who still gave it their all for the several songs after it were the ones that can really be called Franz Ferdinand fans.
It seems that most of the people who showed up were indie fans in their late-20s who have been following or either taking drifting notice of the band since 2004.
As a record, Always Ascending really emits the band’s desires to grow, and that itself is commendable.
The songs from Always Ascending received a great response from the crowd, from lead single “Lazy Boy” to cuts like second song “Paper Cages” and the title track that started their encore.
It was also pretty heartwarming to see a fan invited up on stage by Kapranos to play guitar with him on their debut album cut “Michael”, and have that fan introduce himself as “one of the biggest Franz Ferdinand fans ever”. This show is for people like him, who have stuck with the band with a loyalty rarely seen in typically trend-hopping Jakarta indie kids.
