Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
Wednesday March 13, 2013:
I’ll begin this review with a confession. I never really got into Bloc Party back in ’07. At the time, I was living deep inside a Conor Oberst/Elliott Smith bubble and didn’t have much time for their brand of bright and shiny post-Britpop. Flash forward six years or so and having fallen in love with Kele Okereke’s voice on The Boxer EP, I’m riding shotgun on the bandwagon – even if it is admittedly a little late.
So it was with much anticipation that I ventured to my first Bloc Party show. In the country for the sixth time and as part of the Future Music Festival, the London lads delivered a set spanning their four record history. Although, they are a band that needs no introduction, Okereke was charming from the get go, cheekily introducing the band as “Bloc Party, from mother England.”
The incredible laser light show threatened to steal the spotlight as things got off to a bit of a shaky start, (poor sound can be a bitch for a band known for their duelling guitar parts) but the guys at the sound desk seemed to have found their step by the third track in when the opening riff of ‘Hunting For Witches’ from A Weekend in the City received a rapturous response from the crowd. This was followed up by a slew of crowd pleasures including ‘Like Eating Glass’, which Okereke kindly dedicated to the boys and ‘Waiting for the 7.18’, dedicated to those that caught the bus to the gig.
After a brief and sudden departure from the stage, the band returned for what Okereke described as round two. This first encore/ final quarter of the show had those having a “heavy night” slow dancing to ‘Sunday’ and ‘This Modern Love’ and those with some spirit still left in them jumping around to the sounds of ‘Ares’, and ‘Flux’ featuring an unexpected intro of Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love.’
Although Down Under to promote their fourth record, appropriately titled Four, the boys used the second encore(?) to show off some brand new material, fuelling rumours of a new EP over the horizon. The track in question, ‘Ratchet’, is somewhat different to the rest of Bloc Party’s back catalogue but received an overwhelmingly positive response from the crowd. This was followed up with new and old favourites Four’s ‘Truth’ and ‘Helicopter’ from Silent Alarm.