Project Description
. . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Teenage Dads, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Delivery, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . . . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . Franz Ferdinand, Riverstage, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 29 Nov 2025 . . . . CLICK THE PIC TO VIEW THE NEWS
.FRANZ FERDINAND
+ Teenage Dads + Delivery
@ Riverstage, Brisbane
29th November 2025
(Live Review)Photos and Review by Alec Smart
Scottish Indie-rockers Franz Ferdinand performed a dynamic, energy-charged concert at Brisbane’s Riverstage, the open-air riverside arena in the City Botanic Gardens. Although thunderstorms were forecast earlier in the week, the weather gods were favourable, and Brisbane’s infamous high humidity didn’t dent the enthusiasm of the British headliners either. They were supported by young Victorian bands Teenage Dads and Delivery.
Delivery, a five-piece (three men, two women) from Melbourne launched the evening’s music around sunset with a set of up-tempo garage-punk songs. Bassist Rebecca Allan and rhythm guitarist James Lynch, the core duo who founded the band in 2020, took turns singing lead vocals.
The young members are sprightly onstage and the crowd was receptive. The band revealed one of the Melbourne quintet originally hails from Brisbane, and also took time to welcome a young lad in the front row, Billy, who was attending his first-ever live music concert.
Second guitarist Scarlett Maloney has the cheeky letters ‘ACAB’ in red stickers on her Telecaster guitar – I’ll let the reader do their homework on the origins! – and the curious tattoo ‘Sook’ on her upper left thigh.
Delivery has two albums, Forever Giving Handshakes (2022) and Force Majeure (2025) under their belt and the triple-guitar band (with occasional keyboards from James Lynch) are worth investigating.
Teenage Dads arrived onstage to the amusing announcement of an airline pilot advising the cabin and crew to prepare for take-off. The four-piece from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula met when they were still attending high school and were all actual teenagers – although not necessarily dads, at least not to children that they’ll admit!
The quartet won the Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist award at the 2023 ARIA Awards (named after the late, great Australian music industry champion and founder of Mushroom Records) for their four-track EP Midnight Driving.
The following year their album Majordomo was shortlisted at both the J Awards (hosted by Triple J Radio) and Rolling Stone Australia Awards for Album of the Year.
At The Riverstage Teenage Dads also welcomed young Billy in the front row to his first concert, and Jordan Finlay (lead vocals, guitar and keyboards) climbed down from the stage and requested Billy tell those sat on the grass slope at the top of the arena to stand up. “They won’t listen to me, but they’ll listen to you,” Finlay quipped, handing Billy the microphone. After Billy obliged, the sitters did indeed stand up and there was a surge down the hill from the grassy heights to the front-of-stage concreted dance area.
Teenage Dads played a cover of The Buggles’ 1979 international hit Video Killed The Radio Star, then shortly afterwards another airline pilot message was broadcast over the speakers, warning passengers the forthcoming descent to land “might be quite rocky!” Then they launch into the catchy Live Until You Die, which, with additional keyboards, is indeed quite rocky. A couple more songs then Matt, the bearded guitar technician joined the band onstage for the final number, Weaponz, which finishes on the lyrics, “I saw all your pictures on the internet, take another bullet tonight.”
Franz Ferdinand are a thoroughly entertaining band – which explains why over 6,000 people flocked to the riverside in the tropical humidity to revel in their music. Much of what makes the band such an entertaining live show is the dynamism of vocalist-guitarist Alex Kapranos, who jumps and jives around with effervescent energy. Plus, they have a catalogue of catchy songs that easily sway a sweaty crowd that might otherwise be reluctant to expel energy in Queensland’s muggy weather. The band are in the midst of an international tour, The Human Fear, promoting their most recent album of the same name, which has generated positive reviews and topped a number of international charts.
Franz Ferdinand launched their set with The Dark Of The Matinee, from their 2004 self-titled debut album, about a negative young man preferring watching performance to socialising with people. Then they played Night Or Day, the second single from their latest album (released just 12 months ago), followed by No You Girls – which was originally promoted (2009) with a raunchy video featuring the band performing in front of a group of leotard-wearing female dancers.
Incidentally, during the recording of the latter, released on their 2009 album Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, they employed some unusual implements for percussion. In a March 2022 interview with Vulture culture magazine (USA), Kapranos revealed, “I was at an auction in Glasgow… I saw there was a box of junk and in that box of junk was half a skeleton… We were looking for percussion one day for ‘No You Girls’ and wanted that clicky sort of sound. So, I said, “Oh, let’s grab a couple of femurs,” and we were playing them in no time. It just sounded good!”
Thigh bones for drumsticks! In hindsight, Kapranos has regrets. “Looking back on it, it’s a pretty fucked-up thing to do. We should have just buried it. Fuck knows where that skeleton came from. We should have put it back in the ground or something. That’s how I feel in retrospect…”
Another favourite from the past, Walk Away, was followed by a new song, The Doctor, from the latest album, The Human Fear, which Kapranos dedicated to young Billy in the front row, whom, we learned, travelled six hours to attend this, his first concert.
Do You Want To, the very catchy lead single from their successful second album, You Could Have It So Much Better (2005), inspired another crowd surge down to the front and soon we had hundreds of people singing and dancing along. Two more new songs, Audacious and Black Eyelashes, appeared in the next quartet, during which Kapranos roamed around the stage, ascending the drum riser and a small three-tier platform at the back, intermittently leaping athletically.
Then we were treated to another crowd favourite, Michael, that appeared on their debut album Franz Ferdinand, which won the prestigious 2004 Mercury Prize upon its release. The Mercury Prize celebrates British and Irish musicians of all genres, and tends to favour underdogs, not necessarily the commercially successful, which gives it more credibility with music fans.
Michael is an unusual song in that it celebrates homosexuality, which, on its release, caused minor controversy, but didn’t prevent it racing high up into the Top 20 of Britain’s pop music charts. Writer Alex Kapranos was inspired by two male friends dancing intimately in a Glasgow nightclub.
Shortly after the song’s 2004 release, this reviewer recalls seeing Franz Ferdinand playing at the Brighton Centre in the English seaside city of Brighton & Hove, which has probably the largest gay and lesbian (LGBT) population in Britain. A significant proportion of the audience were from the LGBT community, undoubtedly attracted by that affirmative song.
After Love Illumination, Kapranos fondly remembered his band performing at Australia’s Big Day Out Festival in 2006 (which they headlined with White Stripes and Iggy Pop & The Stooges). “When you looked at the crowd, everybody was going fucking mental!” he recalled. “But, I noticed one thing: nobody had mobile phones. So, for the next song, can we all put our phones in our pockets?” Most of the audience quickly obliged, then Kapranos urged, “Let’s go fucking mental instead!”
The energy ratcheted up several notches as the band struck up their most successful hit, the international crowd-pleaser Take Me Out. The song title refers to the slang term for getting shot and was inspired by the movie Enemy At The Gates (2001). The film plot centres on a Russian and a German sniper playing a game of cat-and-mouse during the WWII Battle of Stalingrad, after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union.
At the end of the song, Kapranos praised the crowd’s enthusiasm. “Brisbane, that’s what I’m talking about! Now, do you want to take that energy higher?!” Evidently the crowd did, because the mobile phones remained in pockets and the dancing continued. There was also a lot of synchronised arm-waving from side to side.
Franz Ferdinand performed another new track, Hooked, then finished their set with Outsiders, the latter involving the four musicians gathering around percussionist Audrey Tait on the drum kit and striking with sticks – the drums that is, not Audrey! and not utilising human femurs either, promise!
The five musicians then left the stage, but the fans knew the show wasn’t over, and a unified chant of “one more song!” began. The band soon reappeared, with Kapranos saying mischievously, “I was heading to the dressing room when I thought I heard a couple of you asking for one more song?” When the crowd cheered the affirmative, Kapranos looked down at the band’s onstage schedule and said, “I’m sorry to tell you, but I’ve got a set list here that says four more songs! Is that okay?!”
Franz Ferdinand then performed the four-punch knockout of 40’, Build It Up, Ulysses and the absolutely scorching finale, This Fire. After reaching a peak, the song slowed in tempo until it was just bassist Bob Hardy maintaining a steady riff. Then, like a dormant bushfire fanned by a gust of wind, the song ignited again, building up to an inflammatory crescendo, with the repeated refrain, “This fire is out of control – I’m gonna burn this city, burn this city!” A good thing the concert was played so close to the river, a few blocks away from the CBD, or at that point we might have seen several city high-rise skyscrapers spontaneously combust!
Set List
Venue speakers: “The Naked Gun” movie theme song
The Dark of the Matinée
Night or Day
No You Girls
Walk Away
The Doctor
Do You Want To
Audacious
Evil Eye
Black Eyelashes
Darts of Pleasure
Michael
Love Illumination
Take Me Out
Hooked
OutsidersEncore
40′
Build It Up
Ulysses
This Fire
Check out Alec Smart’s (@alecsmart_fotos) full gallery of this event Here
Follow FRANZ FERDINAND
Website – Instagram – Twitter Follow Teenage Dads
Website – Instagram – YouTube Follow Delivery
Website – Instagram – YouTube Press Release 8th May 2025 (below) HERE
FRANZ FERDINAND
announce their return
to Sydney for
ON THE STEPS
at Opera House ForecourtWith special guests Teenage Dads and Delivery
General public tickets on sale 10am Wednesday, May 14
.AMNPLIFY – DB
