{"id":967,"date":"2016-09-14T20:56:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T20:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=967"},"modified":"2026-06-27T20:58:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:58:55","slug":"bloc-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=967","title":{"rendered":"Bloc Party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 2007, Tabernacle, Atlanta, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The funny thing about this show is, as much as I looked forward to going, I don\u2019t remember that much about it. I went to this show by myself, my wife was 8 months pregnant, and I thought \u201cWell, if I\u2019m going to see concerts, I should go see them now before the baby is born, because concerts won\u2019t be as easy to get to with a baby in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s true, somewhat, but not much anymore. Still, going to Atlanta for a show from Athens takes some planning and is never as easy as it should be \u2014 a trip to Atlanta can take an hour, or three hours, depending on the traffic. Last year during the snow storm it took some people days to get through the town. Atlanta traffic is terrible.<\/p>\n

Bloc Party, however, is not. A British band whose debut album Silent Alarm<\/em> was creative and exhilarating, Bloc Party brought an indie swagger to their songs, with sometime biting, political lyrics. \u201cHelicopter\u201d calls former President Bush (W) all sorts of nasty things, with the refrain \u201cHe\u2019s born a liar, he\u2019ll die a liar\/Some things will never be different\u201d getting straight to the point. Kele Okereke, aside from having an awesome name, is a strong lead singer, wielding a steady presence in interviews I read and saw him in.<\/p>\n

So I traveled down to the Tabernacle, a fine place to see a show (I watched Snow Patrol, Flaming Lips and the Decemberists perform there over the years), as Bloc Party was touring on their sophomore effort A Weekend in the City<\/em>. I didn\u2019t enjoy Weekend<\/em> as much as Silent Alarm<\/em>, the band tended to go more electronic for the newer album, eschewing some of the sounds and ideas that made Silent Alarm<\/em> so great. The drums, so important in Silent Alarm<\/em>, fall off in Weekend<\/em> \u2014 there\u2019s an urgency in the debut album that\u2019s hard to deny.<\/p>\n

As for the show, certain parts point through my brain. There was great affection for drummer Matt Tong, who drew a great applause when he came out just before the show to check the drum set. Tong\u2019s driving beat is a defining character, and I watched him most of the show to see how he\u2019s able to keep the pace going. He was wiry and up to the challenge, though he must be exhausted after every show.<\/p>\n

Kele was front and center, amidst the blue and white lights blaring out the background. He showed more passion for the newer songs \u2014 \u201cSong for Clay (Disappear Here),\u201d \u201cHunting for Witches,\u201d \u201cThe Prayer\u201d \u2014 than for the ones I was most there to hear (\u201cBanquet,\u201d \u201cLike Eating Glass,\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s Hearing Voices\u201d). I get that \u2014 at this point they were playing those Silent Alarm<\/em> songs for four years, the new material is what drove them. But the band understood the power of \u201cHelicopter\u201d \u2014 it was a song the crowd ached to hear, and Bloc Party knew not to passively make its way through, if that\u2019s possible. I also think Kele enjoyed a crowd of Americans yelling back the lyrics of a song disparaging the country\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

All in all, a good show, but didn\u2019t stand out as an all-time great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 2007, Tabernacle, Atlanta, Ga. The funny thing about this show is, as much as I looked forward to going, I don\u2019t remember that much about it. I went to this show by myself, my wife was 8 months pregnant, and I thought \u201cWell, if I\u2019m going to see concerts, I should go see them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":968,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[169],"class_list":["post-967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-bloc-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}