Franz Ferdinand
The Other Stage, Friday, June 27, 2025
You can tell the acts that ‘get’ Glastonbury, that don’t just pull up and play but actually see their performance as something earned, a major tick off the bucket list.
Franz Ferdinand are definitely one of the latter, singer Alex Kapranos telling of Glastonburys past that inspired Night Or Day, marvelling at “that special Glastonbury noise” and eating up every crowd response as they wheel through a set beautifully balanced between five tracks from most recent album The Human Fear while never forgetting the songs that got them here in the first place.
On the sun blasted plain of The Other Stage, Franz Ferdinand may seem an unlikely salve to Wet Leg’s white hot friction blisters, but this is an hour-long cruise through a quarter of a century career that includes mass pogoing, possibly the first ever bouzouki solo on a main Glastonbury stage during Black Eyelashes, back to back guitar soloing between Kapranos and Dino Bardot like a post-Britpop Thin Lizzy, audience-lit flares and an early nomination for Audrey Tait as the best drummer of the weekend.
No Glastonbury rite of passage would be complete without a special guest, Kapranos teasing the crowd with, “One of the things I love about Glastonbury is the rumours. Of Pulp and Lorde, and maybe you heard we might have someone too.” Referencing Lewis Capaldi, playing on the Pyramid at the same time, he introduces, “The original Capaldi, PETER Capaldi”, and there is a grinning Malcolm Tucker/Doctor Who to swap vocal lines on Take Me Out. To say it goes off is akin to describing Glastonbury as a village fete: the ground positively *shakes* as the delirious crowd bounce and stomp and bellow.
Kapranos comes across throughout like a Bryan Ferry lounge lizard in one of Iggy Pop’s 70s gold satin embroidered jackets, and it’s lapped up. As ringing feedback ends the closing This Fire, it’s strange to reflect that for a band which so often dwells in dark corners, they absolutely light up a festival.
Franz Ferdinand Glastonbury 2025 Setlist:
The Dark Of The Matinee
Night Or Day
Do You Want To
Walk Away
Build It Up
No You Girls
Audacious
Michael
Black Eyelashes
Jacqueline
Love Illumination
Take Me Out
Hooked
This Fire
Follow all of MOJO’s Glastonbury 2025’s coverage HERE!
Photo: Harry Durrant/Getty