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Sunday, October 2, 2005

Making Franz at the Paramount

Posted by on October 2 at 10:55 AM

For years, I’ve generally been prepared to be disappointed at huge theater and arena shows, as they rarely deliver with the energy of a performance at, say, the Showbox or Neumo’s. But in the past seven days or so, performances by Nine Inch Nails, Sigur Ros, and now Franz Ferdinand proved my cynicism wrong. Last night the latter of those three turned the elegant showroom of the Paramount into a writhing, hopping dance party—turning the upscale space into one of the most love-thy-neighbor events I hit all week. The Scottish band left no hit unplayed, charging through all the crowd’s favorites off the debut Franz Ferdinand (“Take Me Out,ā€¯ “Michaelā€¯) and the new, equally recommended You Could Have It So Much Better (which contains the party single of the decade, “Do You Want To.ā€¯). As often happens at the Paramount, the band’s between-song banter was completely swallowed up/garbled in the huge space, but the songs and the presentation definitely showed a band in its prime and confident about their place on top of the pop world—especially the huge Franz Ferdinand logo behind the group that rotated to show their larger-than-life, handsome profiles every couple songs. They sounded great—even energizing the less than healthy in the place, such as the woman celebrating her 41st birthday next to me, a woman who, although she said she’d come down with the flu, was shaking it hard and grinning all night long. Hopefully she’s not paying dearly for that decision today.