Sean Guthrie's verdict: four stars
Outside, the night is dank and it's a midweek one to boot. Inside, support band Eagulls' anachronistic Killing Joke/PiL stylings are doing little to banish the gloom.
Can canny pop strategist Alex Kapranos and his thematically attired crew confound the omens and bring the light of weekend hedonism - their stock-in trade - to the Barrowland?
Judging by the consistently elated response of the crowd, the answer is: hell yeah. It might not be party central but it's as good as, given the circumstances. Franz Ferdinand's is celebratory music, and this is its spiritual home.
Across 100 minutes that draw on their four albums (a blur of songs so succinct they breeze through 20 before the hour mark) the quartet's union of singalong chants and loose funk - Status Quo meets A Certain Ratio, conceptually if not sonically - proves heady.
Populist but smart newer cuts such as Evil Eye, Fresh Strawberries and Love Illumination go down a storm, but unsurprisingly it's Take Me Out, whose riveting intro remains one of the rawest in 21st-century pop, that draws the greatest response.
Only twice do Franz Ferdinand deviate from the script: first by welding Donna Summer's I Feel Love to their own Can't Stop Feeling, then later for a four-man assault on Paul Thomson's drum kit. Otherwise it's like facing a Gatling gun loaded with party tunes.
If only it was the weekend.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article