Concert Recommendation: Peter Hook & the Light, Paradise Rock Club, Saturday, April 28

Peter Hook’s recent immensely-detailed memoir of his New Order years, Substance, may have gotten repetitive with the endless tales of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, misguided business decisions, and bitterness. But a recurring theme emerged: the guy loves touring. He loves touring whether he’s consuming mass quantities of alcohol and drugs or stone cold sober. He loves touring whether he’s chasing skirts or happily married. He loves touring whether he’s partying with his roadies, his support acts, or groupies, or hanging with his family, especially his grown son Jack taking over on bass as the elder Hook covers vocals with their band the Light. He loves touring as long as he’s not dealing with with Barney Sumner’s mercurial moods. He takes pride in bringing the songs he created with Joy Division and New Order to life and connecting with an audience, especially now that he’s past the years of audience members rioting or hurling bottles at the stage. Anyone who saw him when he was still in New Order will recall that he was the only member who reliably was committed to putting on a show, not just showing up. Barney may have the rights to the name, but Peter has held onto the true spirit (True Faith?). He’s got an able backing band, and they”ll be bringing the house down at the Paradise Rock Club on Saturday night.

Concert Review: Franz Ferdinand, House of Blues Boston, April 8

If you see only one sexy disco art rock band this year, make it Franz Ferdinand. Admittedly, there aren’t many other options, but damn, they do it well. Whether it’s full on Roxy Music or their take on Bryan Ferry fronting Talking Heads, they hit hard. And sometimes they go for straighter rock that punches even harder.

If only they had the full confidence in their material to skip the arena rock cliches in pandering to the audience. Maybe if they had more faith in their songs, which they really deserve, Alex Kapranos could stop playing Simon Says to get the audience to clap and sing along. If he had only mentioned Boston once instead of dozens  and dozens of times in a blatant attempt to ingratiate themselves with the locals, they could have squeezed “Bullet,” possibly their best song, into the set. With all the repetitions of "(your city here)", he went from suave lothario to creepy lech using cheesy pick-up lines. The band is tight and original, but these gestures just added bloat.

Opening act Bodega has listened to a lot of the Fall or their Krautrock antecedents. Their female percussionist/backing vocalist even brings Brix Smith’s vivaciousness. However, they were disingenuous in claiming to have no political agenda when they kept spouting lefty politics.