Bloc Party at Blackpool Empress Ballroom - 18th April 2007
Support - Biffy Clyro

Biffy Clyro Setlist
My Recovery Injection
Jjustboy
Saturday Superhouse
Get Fucked Stud
Semi-mental
Who's Got A Match
Now I'm Everyone
Glitter and Trauma


Bloc Party Setlist
Song for Clay
Positive Tension
Hunting for Witches
Waiting for the 7:18
Banquet
I Still Remember
This Modern Love
Little Thoughts
The Prayer
Uniform
So Here We Are

Encore:
Sunday
Like Eating Glass
She's Hearing Voices
Pioneers
Helicopter


To shouts of "mon the Biffy!", Biffy Clyro stroll onto the stage at the Blackpool Empress Ballroom to great cheers from one section of the Bloc Party audience, while many prefer to stand back and wait for the main act. Somewhat heavier than you’d expect from a band supporting Bloc Party, Biffy Clyro play an excellent, albeit short, set with a mixture of old and new songs. New single 'Saturday Superhouse' goes down the best with the crowd, although there was some suggestion that they were "one hit wonders". This is soon proved to be ridiculous as older singles 'Semi-Mental' and 'Glitter and Trauma' round off the set in spectacular style.

Half an hour later the curtain drops on the stage and Bloc Party arrive, and Kele Okereke launches into the falsetto opening to 'Song For Clay (Disappear Here)'. Such is the noise from the crowd that the song is barely audible until the opening riff kicks in. The set has a good mix of old and new with 'Silent Alarm' tracks like 'Positive Tension' and 'So Here We Are' bringing the house down as ever, and the better songs off 'A Weekend In The City' being very well received. Old single (and bonus track on deluxe editions of Silent Alarm) 'Little Thoughts' is given a makeover and sounds better than ever, as do many of the older songs, although Banquet lacks a little of the raw sound that made it one of their best songs. Russell Lissack is amazing as ever on guitar and Matt Tong and Gordon Moakes on drums and bass keep things ticking over with amazing energy, but it is frontman Kele Okereke that draws attention in, and makes the whole show into one of epic proportions. By far the best technical singer I’ve ever seen live, his on-stage persona has evolved from the shy indie kid I saw in 2005, via the more confident ‘06 Kele, who previewed the new songs to the fan-club-only crowds, to this Kele of 2007. Confident, powerful and energetic, he feeds off the crowd’s adulation and repays them two-fold with a storming performance.

When the band return for the encore, there are two drum kits, and Moakes switches from bass to join Matt Tong on drums for ‘Sunday’, before the band round off the night with some more songs from their 2005 debut album ‘Silent Alarm’. ‘She’s Hearing Voice’s really “gets the party started” as they intended, ‘Pioneers’ is even bigger than on the album and ‘Helicopter’ ends the show in explosive style. I’m not sure if any band can ever recapture the emotions of the first gig I went to (Bloc Party at the Manchester Apollo), but this gig is certainly one of the best I’ve been to in a long time. Brilliant.

Review by Rory Walker


<- Back