Picked up two singles yesterday: Graham Coxon’s Bittersweet Bundle of Misery and Morrissey’s Irish Blood, English Heart. Coxon’s has more than a passing musical similarity to Coffee & TV and the lyrics sounds like they may have been co-written with a 12-year-old. It’s nice and jaunty though, so that’s OK.

Morrissey, on the other hand, has produced a criminally good comeback single, the crime probably being that it’s only 2 mins 39 secs long. Great, slightly wistful tune, and the pointed and stylish lyrics that made him famous. Easily vying with Franz Ferdinand for Best Single of the Year so far.

And now to undermine that carefully cultivated indie cred by mentioning that it’s Eurovision tonight. I’ve had a flutter but I was quite thrown by the results of the semi-final so I’m not going to try to predict how the viewers will vote across Europe. And I still think we’d do better if had classically-trained actor James Fox representing us.

You can view all the entries on the Eurovision website, which also reveals that research at the University of Leiden has discovered that one of the “most used words by Eurovision fans in connection with the song contest” is “Eurovision”.

Indie rock! You’re my most favourite type of music… Your music channels lots of emotion. On the top it seems simple, but underneath there’s always a deep meaning… As your name you’re independent from most of music! Stay that way! Good on you! There’s so much variation in your style…from deep and thoughtful like The Stills, to happy go lucky like Belle & Sebastian, to dancy and catchy Franz Ferdinand, and back to boogie down Hot Hot Heat and The Rapture…

What genre of rock are you?
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A cunning quiz this as it included a question along the lines of “What type of rock do you like?”

Nod: Rob Tiffen

I’m just listening to Xfm and am most impressed that they are playing a band as old and as good as ELO. Which reminds me that between the bands at the Franz Ferdinand gig they played ELO, which only served to show up the support acts.

I’m also reminded, having seen The Fiery Furnaces’ album in HMV today, that the only memorable bit of their performance was the repeated line “Tropical…icy-icy” from their song Tropical Iceland. Oh, and the standout (possibly for the wrong reasons) lyric “The rain in Spain falls mainly on me.” Don’t take that as a recommendation though.

So I went to see Franz Ferdinand’s Leeds gig on their tour, or rather their second Leeds gig: they played a secret set the night before under the cunning pseudonym The Black Hands. Except news got out and a thousand people tried to get in to a venue fitting three hundred.

The less eventful gig I attended was at the Blank Canvas, an apt description of an unfurnished (save for a bar and stage) tunnel in railway arches under Leeds City Station. Uneventful also describes the two support acts, who weren’t helped by a feedback-infested sound system (which surprisingly fixed itself for the headliners). Sons and Daughters were hard to hear and didn’t leave the impression of being anything special. The Fiery Furnaces (I think that’s what they were called) were a little better, but used the cunning ploy of segueing their songs together to avoid unenthusiastic applause between them. As a result we weren’t sure if they played ten similar songs or one slightly odd one.

Franz Ferdinand themselves dwarfed their support. They were confident, clear (impressive given the acoustics), and classy. The crowd, who took little warming up, bounced away to Take Me Out and their other two singles. After a long and pretty exhaustive set, they returned for an encore of This Fire and Shopping for Blood. The combination of different vocalists works well live (unsurprising for a band that grew as part of their own live music scene in Glasgow) and the songs were was, needless to say, terrific.

This was my first gig since I said goodbye to Suede. The musical invention, wry lyrics and live performance showed promise that Franz Ferdinand can lead the renaissance of British indie. Their challenge now is to produce a second album that builds on, rather than just repeats, the first.