The Silent Words Speak Loudest Leeds Festival 2003 Rock ‘N’ Roll Diary

Saturday 23rd August

15.00, Carling Stage

“Me? Playing guitar in front of a group of excitable young people, some of whom are female? With MY reputation?” OK, so FRANZ FERDINAND’s rakish frontman Alex Kapranos doesn’t actually say this, but he does do a pretty passable if unintentional impersonation of Paul Whitehouse’s charming yet ever-so-slightly lecherous ‘Fast Show’ cad. With their floppy fringes, and wearing the sort of shirts that should surely have seen them skinned alive in their native Glasgow long before now, Franz Ferdinand deal in arch and erudite art-pop, somewhere between Interpol and Pulp. Eccentric but not forcedly so, they end their set with forthcoming single ‘Darts Of Pleasure’, for part of which Alex trades in his gentle Scottish burr for the harsh cadences of German. On first listen, no idea what it’s all about - but it sounds great, as do other songs aired, most notably ‘Shopping For Blood’. Ones to watch, as they say.