Big Marr Strikes Again: The Smiths legend joined the indie icons on stage.
On Saturday 18th January Franz Ferdinand gave a concert at Manchester’s Aviva Studios. Starting with “The Doctor” from their current album THE HUMAN FEAR, which reached number eleven in Germany, just outside the top ten, they played their way through classics like “No You Girls”, “Walk Away” and “The Dark Of The Matinee,” before one of the city’s most famous sons, The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, came on stage to thunderous applause.
“Bigmouth Strikes Again” in a new version
Together they performed the Scots’ new album track ‘Build It Up’ before ‘Do You Want To’, which reached number two in the UK charts 20 years ago, had the audience jumping. The biggest highlight, however, was the subsequent Smiths cover “Bigmouth Strikes Again”, in which singer Alex Kapranos – recently with elegantly licked back hair in the footsteps of Jens Friebe’s look – made a surprisingly good replacement Morrissey. Almost 40 years ago, in May 1986, the song was the second single from THE QUEEN IS DEAD, the indie pioneers’ most famous album, which is considered one of the best records of all time across all genres.
Here you can take your own picture with a fan recording of the performance:
To the background
Franz Ferdinand’s concert took place as part of Amazon Music’s City Sessions series, which was streamed live on Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel.