Franz Ferdinand Live at Dolans Warehouse - 28/02/2009 Review

Stage diving, Stage invasions, Mayhem and cheer madness greeted Franz Ferdinand in Dolans on Saturday. After a close win against England in the Six Nations I found myself down in dolans right in front of the stage to witness one of the best gigs in limerick for a long time. The crowd were well up for this and the tickets sales was the first indication of this. 35 seconds the tickets lasted on sale and the small warehouse was jam packed. This was to be the bands first night of their “Tonight Tour”. The tour will see them in venues such as The Olympia in Dublin, The Barrowlands in Glasgow, the Hammersmith Apollo in London and so on. This seems to be the most intimate venue on the tour and Limerick is so pleased to have such an act in town and the crowd make this well known to the band. The support act “The Funeral Suits” started the night off to a flying start. Their mini rip roaring set got the crowd going no end, two TV sets adorned the stage , One showing the drummer and the other showed various crazy images and the bands logo. This band is going places! Their energy on stage is just great and the small time they did have on stage made you hungry for more. I have already written about them here: http://indielimerick.blogspot.com/2009/02/music-snippets-9-funeral-suits.html , so go check them out The main act came soon after the suits had left and just got straight down to business playing the hit “Come on Home” from their first self titled album. This great sing-along number, just showed the potential madness in the crowd and the band were visibly excited by the energy oozing from crowd. The bands latest album “Tonight” brings there album tally to three and their set list was extremely well put together. No one could be disappointed in what they played. 6 from their first album, 4 from their second (“You Could Have It So Much Better”) and 5 from their new album, A great all-round set list. Third song in, the crowd pleaser “Dark of the Matinee” was played. The crowd just went mental, good mental! This didn’t really die down at all from then on. The band seemed to be really enjoying the reception they were getting. The crowd were singing word for word of nearly every song, the decibel level was off the scale. Lead singer Alex Kapranos said that “people told him Limerick was going to be good but this is Amazing”. The night was just awesome, it was one of the best gigs in Limerick for quite some time, lets hope dolans can keep attracting big name bands like these guys, because we sure as hell will bring the crowd. The band came out to play a further four songs for the encore, the second last song “Outsiders” involved the whole band plus a roadie playing the one drum kit. They capped the madness with “This Fire”. “This fire is out of control, were gonna burn this city, burn this city!” The gig was out of control with two members of the crowd getting up on stage before being hunted back down by security, then both Alex and rhythm guitarist Nick McCarthy at the end of the song were dragged into the crowd for an unrehearsed crowd surf! The place was buzzing from start to finish and it was an amazing night. When your that physically drained from a gig, you know it was a damn good one!, Cheers to Dolans and Franz for a great night. The bands own video below of the night from their myspace page tells it all really. Set List : Come on Home No You Girls The Dark of the Matinee (Video Below) Do You Want To (Video Below) Twilight Omens Walk Away Bite Hard The Fallen Take Me Out (Video Below) Turn It On 40' Micheal Ulysses Encore : Jacqueline What She Came For Outsiders This Fire

Franz Ferdinand- Dark of the Matinee, Live at Dolans - 28/02/09 (Bands Own Video) Franz Ferdinand- Take Me Out, Live at Dolans - 28/02/09 Franz Ferdinand- Do You Want To, Live at Dolans - 28/02/09 If anyone has some better photos please let me know, if anyone wants to add their videos just ask, cheers