Talents and Brave Hearts

I just did something I rarely do: I bought some CDs with recent popular music. First, Jamie Cullum, whose TV concert at Blenheim Palace made me recall David Bowie at the first Live Aid introducing “the very talented Mr Thomas Dolby”. Cullum is the epitome of talent, with all its pitfalls.

Second, Franz Ferdinand, the Glaswegians I always considered to be overrated (when I did not, out of some unexplainable slip of the brain, confuse them with Belle & Sebastian). Again, a televised concert (yesterday, MTV, Edinburgh) made me think otherwise. It’s all a matter of nostalghia, of course. Their shameless mod behaviour (Decent short hair cuts! The drummer wore a tie! They raised their guitars to a dome!) made me remember the early Who, and then there were moments when singer Alex Kapranos remotely reminded me of Jim Morrison. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is definitely something to give an old man like me goose pimples all over. Aren’t we all desperately waiting for somehting like the return of the Lizard King (and all we normally get is a bunch of cloned Krawall-Würstchen)!