Watch Johnny Marr join Franz Ferdinand on stage in Manchester for a Smiths classic

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Johnny Marr joins Franz Ferdinand on stage in Manchester

Franz Ferdinand are the latest act to play Aviva Studios as part of the ongoing Amazon series here in Manchester and were joined by a local music legend during the performance: none other than the mighty Johnny Marr.

Amazon Music UK’s ‘City Sessions’ has already seen the likes of Bastille and Ella Henderson kick off the programme of live performances at Aviva Studios, home of Factory International, and this past weekend saw the alternative indie veterans become the third.

Better yet, the Manchester crowd got to see one of their hometown heroes as well, as the former Smiths guitarist turned lyricist and solo artist joined the Glaswegians on stage for a spell.

A ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ cover by Franz Ferdinand featuring Johnny Marr himself was on absolutely no one’s bingo card for 2025 but we’re very happy we’ve lived to see this cameo.

@alixhgz never would i have imagined @Franz Ferdinand to have covered bigmouth with johnny marr wtf #fyp #franzferdinand #thesmiths #johnnymarr #foryoupage ♬ original sound – alix

The 61-year-old musician still has all the effortless swagger he always did and although anyone would struggle to match the same distinct vocal style as Morrissey, lead singer Alex Kapranos did a great job.

Reacting to the clips shared online, the excitement in the room was clearly palpable, with one person writing, “I let out the biggest scream” and another adding, “The crossover I didn’t know I needed!”

A third wrote: “I’d like to see them do an album together like the magnificent FFS album” – referring to the standalone collaboration record created by the Franz Ferdinand and Sparks supergroup in 2015.

Local social media and marketing company, Altrincham HQ, also shared footage of the two artists colliding to perform the Franz fan favourite ‘Do You Want To’, with Marr playing lead throughout.

Just excellent.

The entire performance was livestreamed on Amazon’s Twitch channel as part of the City Sessions series, so you can back and watch the full thing, but it’s fair to say this was the highlight.

It was only back in September that we saw the re-release of Johnny Marr’s only solo album with The Healers, Boomslang, but we’re glad to see the Manc icon is still finding plenty of opportunities to get on stage and do what he does best.

As for whether we’ll see more live performances of The Smiths tunes in the near future, Morrissey recently said that Marr now has full rights to all of their music and could feasibly tour with someone as lead should he wish.

However, the latter was quick to deny the controversial frontman’s claims and insisted that he had simply refused to sign an important document. His response also detailed previous talks about a potential reunion, though the chances of it ever happening now looked slimmer than ever.

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Featured Images — Nicholas O’Donnell (supplied)