Forget the neighbours, Franz Ferdinand are here to party

3 months ago 31

MUSIC
Franz Ferdinand
Opera House Forecourt, December 3
Reviewed by GEORGE PALATHINGAL
★★★★

It’s the Sydney gig that any artist would find impossible to resist: a chance to play to an adoring crowd with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge providing the dazzling backdrop.

Depending on the act – in this instance, Glasgow’s premier rock party-starters, Franz Ferdinand – it’s not always necessarily quite as spectacular for the crowd, what with the reduced volume and 10pm curfew in deference to local residents.

But that’s not Franz’s fault. And, led by irrepressible frontman Alex Kapranos with his slicked-back hair, shiny shirt and twinkle in the eye, the (now) five-piece outfit fires into this show with typical gusto.

Franz Ferdinand are still going strong as Glasgow’s premier rock party-starters.

It’s a set front-loaded with so many exuberant hits there’s a fear they might run out – half an hour in and we’ve already gone berserk to the suave yet sizzling likes of The Dark of the Matinee, No You Girls and Do You Want To – but as the set progresses, you remember Franz Ferdinand have loads of them and they’re not the kind of band to hold back. Still to join the party, and with delicious impact, are beloved old friends Jacqueline, Michael and Ulysses.

Franz have also got a good, if not great, new album (their sixth in a 20-plus-year career, The Human Fear, arrived with little fuss in January) but they wring the best from that, too, sneaking the better songs among the beloved bangers.

Frontman Alex Kapranos has no shortage of energy.

Kapranos not only gets everyone to wave their hands to Audacious and its anthemic chorus, and clap along to the jaunty Build It Up, he introduces Black Eyelashes, a newie marinated in traditional Greek music, with a cheeky Take Me Out fake (me) out. (How anyone might have fallen for his introduction when he was wielding a bouzouki, of all instruments, remains a mystery.)

Of course, when the steely opening twang of Take Me Out actually does arrive – after a tender tribute to Brisbane’s mighty Go-Betweens – it builds to pretty much everyone, on stage and off, jumping up and down with unfettered delight to its iconic riff and forgetting it’s barely 9.30 on a school night.

Despite all the restrictions, what a fun night it turns out to be.

DANCE
New Breed
Carriageworks, December 3
Until December 13
Reviewed by KATIE LAWRENCE
★★★★

Since 2012, Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed has been a launchpad for Australia’s most daring new choreographers. This year, after creating 49 new works across the past 12 years, the program takes its final bow, with the company shifting focus to an artist-in-residence program. It’s a pivot – but New Breed, true to form, goes out with risk, personality, and four works that land with impact.

The evening opens with Ryan Pearson’s Save Point. Inspired by the video games and outdoor adventures of childhood, the piece delivers exactly what it promises: a whimsical, playground atmosphere. Dancers in knee-high socks and athletic wear follow a Pied Piper figure through a world that feels both nostalgic and surreal.

Dancer and choreographer Ngaere Jenkins.

Ngaere Jenkins’ From the Horizon Thereafter follows, deepening the tone and ushering in a post-apocalyptic vibe that saturates the remainder of the program. Jenkins, from Aoteroa/New Zealand, reflects on her homeland, and a “culture asked to disappear quietly”. With five men and one woman, the work leans prisoner-of-war in its aesthetic. Deep drums, weighted floorwork, and haunting vocals make for an evocative, transformative and quietly devastating performance.

Third is Emma Fishwick’s marathon-o-marathon, a musing on climate collapse and global conflict that likens our current era to sprinting a marathon. With quirk that is deliberate and deft, it features a medieval knight’s helmet, unicorn cut-out, puffy sleeves, random bag of oranges (some thrown across the stage in sync with lighting shifts) and a dancer reading marathon finishing times into a microphone like a doomsday metronome. Mirroring the audience’s own exhaustion on the modern treadmill, it’s funny until it isn’t – and that switch is the point.

The night closes with Harrison Ritchie-Jones’ Pigeon Humungous. While less pigeon-laden than its title teases, the work delivers Ritchie-Jones’ signature blend of athleticism, wit, and fearless partnering. The dancers are dressed in a mix of fluoro green, orange feathers, long tartan skirts, and industrial grey. They strut, preen, cartwheel, flutter, breakdance, posture, twitch like broken dolls and occasionally erupt into kung fu – all against a score of screeching metal and exquisite liturgical hymns. It’s a beautiful disaster, meticulously orchestrated.

For more than a decade, New Breed has championed choreographers willing to be bold, strange, tender and unruly. Its departure marks the end of an era – and its absence will be felt long after the final curtain.