Best Friday Afternoon Rock-out Rundown

There's an old Cherokee belief that you'll have an awesome afternoon if you see a chubby man zipping down the street in Chelsea on a Segway and I have to concede that I now believe there's some truth to Native American wisdom.


This picture hasn't got anything to do with the story I'm about to tell.


Neither does this one, except that the Empire State Building is down the street from the Hammerstein Ballroom.


All right. Here's the deal. Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab for Cutie were in town to play two shows this week, right? I made getting tickets to the show a non-priority and it totally sold-out on me and I was like "Whatever, I can live with that."

BUT then on Thursday the Internet told me that Franz was going to be playing a Free! Secret! matinee on Friday, all you had to do was bring a myspace profile to the NoHo Tower Records and they'd give you a wristband and you could go to the show! As Tower Records is right by NYU I went over to see if they had any wristbands left that afternoon . . . and they did, so I got mine, and I went to the show. Just like that.

I shared spots in line with Erin, Richard, and Ty.


Every now and then Erin busts out with the stone cold model/actress look and there's nothing anyone can do about it!


Also found in line: The Unquestionable Queens of Archduke Admiration.


Mitch played a key role in the locating of my beloved Bad Sebastian shirt, so I was really glad that the two finally got to meet.


I was slow to understand, but Mitch wanted to recreate this picture. (Greg, you're next.)

Back at my spot in line Trish and Amber had shown up.


No way! Ashley was there too?! Was this going to be the best concert crowd ever invented?


Sometimes it can be hard to decide which picture to use.


Yeah, and then Karisa and Keri and their Mom and Dad showed up!! I had know idea Karisa's parents were on myspace!


Los Arboles Sagrados keep it real.


One of the most surprising things about the show was that the band took the stage about 25 minutes after we got into the theater. They kicked off their set of rarities and requests with "Michael."


Great, just what I need: Photoblogger competition from Karisa's mom.

(Everyone think about this for a second again: Mom and Dad Holyoak were at the Franz Ferdinand show on Friday. In the very front. What were your parents doing Friday afternoon? Better said, what were you doing Friday afternoon?)




This photo (and my one tooth that's trying to poke out) is dedicated to Jenna.




So caught taking my picture (I suppose Ashley could say the same).




Come on, Keri. Let's get serious here. This is rock n roll.






One of the last songs the band played was "Darts of Pleasure." As the band approached the end of the song Alex invited those in the audience who knew the song's closing refrain (As Alex said, "It's easy, you just say 'Ich heisse Superfantastisch! Ich trinke Schampus und Lachsfisch! Ich heisse Su-per-fan-tas-tisch!')--he certainly could've gotten people who were more expert on stage, but the kids were alright.


The show was pretty good, everything was going along nice and normal and fun--nothing spectacular, in fact, the show was remarkably friendly and nice, not necessarily the villainous Franz I met when I first saw them last year--but then Alex said something like "I'd like to have the lights turned off for the start of this next number" and so the stage lights were turned off and Alex is like "This song is called Evil and a Heathen" and everyone cheers and then (I hope you know the song) the drums and bass come in low and mean and then the guitar slithers in like an angry King Cobra followed by a pack of scorpions and the lights flash on, everything is an eerie yellow and the song is soooo mustache-twistingly sinister, it's like the band was a bunch of Draculas and I was like "Yeahhhh." So best.




As the band is inclined to do, they ended their set with 'Outsiders.' I absolutely love how they triple-team the drums on this number.



And here's an experiment, I've youtubed some short videos from the show, here's part of 'Outsiders':



And here's a bit of 'Do You Want To.' Youtube compressed my huge beautiful videos down to almost nothing, but the sound is still good.



And here's some of 'Evil and a Heathen.'



The Setlist Was: Michael, Auf Achse, I'm Your Villain, Van Tango, Tell Her Tonight, Do You Want To, L.Wells, Walk Away, Evil and a Heathen, Darts of Pleasure, and Outsiders.

When the show ended I was like, "Hey, how'd you like the rock?" and Erin's posse was like: "Yeah, pretty great rock, but we're going to go check out the flower show now."


But I was a little like, "Uhm, I don't want to leave yet?" And then, as everyone was filing out, I noticed Alex Kapranos (I read their contract at Sony and that is not his real last name) over in the corner saying "yo" to his fans, so I was like, "I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to take a picture of Alex."


But then I thought, Why stop there? Alex needs to know that I was the guy in the video that dressed up as Bob, right? And he was like, "Oh, that was you? That video was brilliant! We had a great laugh!" And so I was like, "Hey, want to take a blurry photo with me?" And he was like, "Absolutely."


And then I told him that a bunch of other people from the video were there too Alex said, "Well I should pop over and say hello to them." And let me tell you, it feels pretty cool to be bringing Alex Kapranos over to meet your friends (even if some of them had already met him 100 times before).

When he met Karisa, who played him in the video, he was like "Wow, you look just like me!" and then we took a picture that was a little dark instead of blurry.


And it was fun meeting Alex and everything, but eventually Mitch asked the question everyone was wondering: "Uhm, where's Bob?" Alex figured he was around somewhere, so we persisted in our not-leaving of the Hammerstein.

And you know how it is with good things and waiting. Here's Mitch catching up with Mr. Hardy and deciding who'd keep the portrait she painted of him (The answer: Bob)


And then, finally, I got to tell Bob the thing I had wanted to tell him for so long: "Hey, I was the guy in the wig!" He was very nice for someone who was meeting their doppleganger.


(If you forgot or never knew, this is what I look like when I'm Bob.)


Keri didn't know what to think of all the rockstar interaction.


And then Nick the Guitarist came over because he was jealous of all the attention everyone else had been getting. Also, he needed to catch up with Mitch, because they have lots of mutual friends. (If you don't know, that's not a joke)


This is right before Nick and Mr. Holyoak totally hit it off.


Finally, after all the friendliness and interaction, we took a group picture with Nick where he busted out with the total rock star pose. That's what we pay them for, after all.



Moral of the Story: When the internet says "free tickets", you say "Yes". And when rock stars are on the floor, you say "Hello".

ps very good article on the band from the Independent here.
pps and here you can find new tracks and videos by the band, the L.Wells video is especially worth your time.