Franz Ferdinand / Bloc Party - London Great Eastern Hotel - 5/2/04
4/5
By: Toby L
... Mirror, pass me the goddamned mirror...
Yes, time to dress up. Time to suck in your flabby facial cheeks and let that chiselled bone-structure of your noggin exude its full glory. And, for heaven's sake, just don't wear those shoes.
And so you imagine the previous is the mindset of the typical, trendy, good-looking, sexy 'Dazed & Confused' consortium gathered in the swanky deluxo Great Eastern Hotel to celebrate a launch of this year's admirable 're:creation' initiative; a tour and awards-ceremony formulated to unearth and reward those creative youthful genii of modern living (from exponents in fashion to photography to music, et al).
Fittingly to the latter, 'Dazed...' have intelligently placed onstage first this evening Bloc Party. Four unquestionably young tykes, their grasp of build-you-up, throbbing bass-lines, hysterical drumming and eerie, hazy atmospherics is only bettered by all-out, infectious tunefulness - the tempestuously melodic likes of 'Little Thoughts' and 'The Answer' are a glory, while cheers erupt from the few movers 'n' shakers at the front when already legendary debut-45 'She's Hearing Voices' palpitates from the PA. It's an admirable, at times overwhelming, display... We want more.
Then no prizes for guessing who's next - their name's been emblazoned across the bass-drum all night. Franz Ferdinand are the most fun you could care to have at such a function; their frilly, louder-than-their-music shirts, polite, preppie-boy haircuts, and the drummer's somewhat sleazy tache, already single them out to be the finest new band of your time. And that's before the first chord of 'Cheating On You' is even struck - by which point you're robotically bopping and shimmying as if you were part of the group yourself.
And teeming to the brim with imminent indie 'classics', their shared-vocal bounce of 'Tell Her Tonight', cascading, 80s homage 'Jacqueline' and jubilant set-closer 'Darts Of Pleasure' are the best three tracks rockfeedback has heard live for possibly months. Hundreds of the previously unconverted look on in stylish shock, downing cocktails in disbelief at it all. Spoilt, we saunter off to the bar to try and recover via liquid indulgence, of course chatting to decadent birthday-boy Har Mar on the way.
A double-bill, in its own right, worth donating a kidney to be present for - let alone in such unique, plush quarters for such a worthy, valid cause - levels of intoxication have led us to form the basis of a new publication to reflect such excited, drunken revelations. Hazed & (welcomingly) Abused. Subscribe now.
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