Franz Ferdinand proves longevity of pop

MGMT/Franz Ferdinand

Hordern Pavilion, July 25

★★★½

Reviewed by Michael Bailey

MGMT and Franz Ferdinand are pop-minded bands who formed in 2002, and both enjoyed their biggest hits in the 2000s, but this night's co-headlining show proved the similarities don't go much further.

Glaswegian five-piece Franz Ferdinand played first and immediately got the sold-out crowd moving with the tricky Always Ascending, the title track of their latest album. The line, "Never gonna resolve!", teased the chorus, as the band deftly shifted tempos.

Between the disco or funk-lite sheen on much of their new material, and frontman Alex Kapranos' limited-yet-charismatic croon, Franz Ferdinand often sounded like a rebooted Ian Dury & the Blockheads. But the songs have clearly been crafted with Hordern-sized barns in mind and the crowd mostly seemed into it, egged on by the scissor-kicking Kapranos.

The biggest response, not surprisingly, came when the band went back to the angular guitar stomps of their eponymous breakthrough album. Take Me Out sounded as exciting as ever, while This Fire provided a final rousing chorus.

MGMT opened their set with one of their most dirge-like singles, Alien Days, and the muted response suggested a few wished they had been in Melbourne the night before, when Franz Ferdinand had played last.

The Connecticut duo is augmented by a touring rhythm section but they use more programmed sounds than the Scots, and the vocals run through effects that often make them unintelligible.

MGMT's proggy tendencies did give way to some euphoric moments. Time to Pretend shook the crowd from its stupor early on, Electric Feel worked better than on record because its nonsensical lyrics couldn't be understood, while the title track of this year's Little Dark Age album showed the duo can still write a big danceable hook.

The immortal keyboard riff of Kids devolved into a 10-minute rave that closed the set on a high, before MGMT returned with one of their prettiest songs for the encore, another ode to innocence in the guitar-led The Youth.

Both these noughties bands did enough to convince that they will be doing their own thing well into the next decade.