Bloc Party – Bristol O2 Academy - Tuesday 20th October 2009

The latest tour from indie pioneering band Bloc Party is the aptly named “Bloctober” tour. A treat for all Bloc Party fans and even those just coming along for a ride. The Support act was indie band Grammatics, and interesting little band that seemed pretty nervous in front of the crowd; that was at maximum capacity. They seemed to gain a few extra fans though, including myself.
Opening song that the Party came on to was ‘Halo’; a great song to get the crowd going even if they didn’t know the song. Personally i think ‘Like Eating Glass’ should have been the opening song as it’s a great opener on the ‘Silent Alarm’ album, but they played it second instead. The set seemed to be going really well and the crowd thrilled at the four men pouring their hearts into their music; but then front man Kele Okereke decided to pour than his heart into the music. As i watched him belt out some riffs and sing, the scratchplate on his guitar seemed to go from white to red. Once the song was over he announced that the strings had managed to make him bleed, something that had never happened before. After he told the crowd to take pictures of it, a roadie ran onstage and put a plaster on Kele’s finger while he stood grinning at the situation. The set then went ahead and by the end of the next song the guitar was bloodied up again. This didn’t faze Kele though and he trooped on through the set till the end for us all: a true front man. As well as this, we saw a lot of dancing from Kele and drummer Matt Tong who were trying to get the crowd dancing with them throughout the gig.
The stage/set design was mainly a load of big lights set up, like the Olympia gig back in April this year, but just scaled down for the intimate Bristol venue. There was a lot of strobe lighting from them; and this combined with the dancing made it seem more like a rave. Well, who can complain about a rave and a gig mixed together?
The closing song from the Party was, of course, Helicopter which had the crowd going wild. Once the band had left and the crowd were reluctantly being usher outside we found that it was pouring with rain; but not even that could damped the spirits after the intimate and very entertaining show from The Pioneers.
Set List
• Halo
• Like Eating Glass
• Song For Clay (Disappear Here)
• Hunting For Witches
• Waiting for The 7.18
• The Prayer
• Flux
• The Once and Future King
• Ares
• Mercury
• Trojan Horse
• One Month Off
• Better Than Heaven
• Helicopter
• Banquet
• This Modern Love
• Two More Years
• One More Chance
EA

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