so I know I'm not supposed to use this picture without permission from One Louder , but I'm not doing anything bad or commercial... and I only want it because I can see my head! see the Camera? look to the left - that's my head! so, uh.. just go visit One Louder and everything will be fine. I hope.
anyway! so BLOC PARTY it is.
(this will be backdated soon because it is sooo old)
the night started well - the opening acts (respectively) were Chromeo and The Ponys. I had no idea what to expect of Chromeo... I had seen some videos of people rollerskating to chromeo, but that was about it. WELL! Turns out that Chromeo is made of 2 fantastic people as well as a sometimes drummer. The Guitar player teaches french here and the other guy spends a lot of his time with a tube in his mouth inviting individual people to dance by pointing at them.
The Bowery was basically empty when Chromeo started, but it filled up slowly and steadily. Chromeo's pretty fun disco/funk music that commands people to at least smile, if not laugh and dance. Because of the guitar players connections to Columbia the place was crawling with classmates. Many of whom were in his class. How awesome is that? I'd like my teacher to take me to his concert. Anyway. Chromeo's cool. In the words of the drunk guy, "Chrooomeooo! FUCK YEAH!" I've seen him around campus a few times since then and I still can't get that drunk guy's voice out of my head. Uh yeah. So if you see Chromeo somewhere near you, do yourself a favor - take a couple of shots and then head down there. It'll be loads of fun.
After a little wait on came the Ponys. I'd heard good word of mouth about these guys, so I was expecting a good show. When I heard the guitars start I even told my friend, "wow, I think this is going to be amazing." But it wasn't. The performance was actually very boring. I wanted to like it, I did. The music was good. I think if I had closed my eyes and sat underneath the stage I would have thought, "yeah, this is pretty good." But the performance did nothing for me. The band members all seemed nice and the music was good, but after the engaging funk of Chromeo, this band really brought nothing to the table. Honestly though, if I had a choice to buy the album I would. It was good music. They just need to work on the performance.
The Ponys exited and then came the moment of truth. I feel that I should open this nice review/summary of Bloc Party with a statement about the hype that has gotten everyone so worked up... I'd like to present to you a conversation that I had with a high school student in between sets at the Shins show:
Student (with hands over face): ahhh! I'm so excited! I can't contain myself!
Me (shouting over music): yeah I know! haha don't worry about it - I went to see Bloc Party a few weeks ago and I was literally shrieking when they came on stage!
Student: Who?
Me: Bloc Party!
Student: Never heard of em.
psssshhh. I wasn't even going to touch that one.
Though this kid apparently lives under a rock, everyone at the Bloc Party show knew them. And loved them. Oh, and the part about me shrieking when they came on stage? Yeah I wasn't joking. I'd loved these guys for so long, I was freaking out. My friend laughed at me and the guy next to me probably thought I was the biggest freak, but you know, whatever.
So the guys come out and open smashingly with "Banquet." The crowd went insane. I was right against the stage and was pushed many times. I think the crowd was collectively engaging in some kind of dance pushing movement. After they finished the song Gordy told us - "You guys are officially better than last night." I'm not sure what made thursday night so lame, but I think it might have been the high presence of skeptics and reviewers cause it seemed like everyone on friday was a major fan. Towards the beginning of the show someone commented that it wasn't very loud. Kele was like, "It isn't very loud? Make it louder!" And oh, they listened. It was loud. It was really, really loud. I feared for my ears. I kid you not.
So they played some more songs and I loved every one. The banter in between the songs was great too. The crazy drummer took off his shirt early in the set and reminded us that "our prince got married today!" Kele also asked if Chris from craiglist was there, and even though I didn't know what he was talking about then, I later found the ad that went something like this:
I will bone you for a ticket to Bloc Party tonight! - $25
Reply to: [redacted]
Date: 2005-04-08, 2:44PM EDT
Attention hot hipster chicks with tickets to the Bloc Party show:
I will bone you for a ticket. This is not a joke
In addition to the awesome boning, I also will give you face value for your ticket and buy you as many cans of pabst blue ribbon that you can drink. As if the cash, beer and boning wasn't enough, I will stand next to you and sing ALL of the lyrics to ALL of their songs. If you're hot enough, you can even pretend to be my girlfriend for the rest of the night.
Let me reiterate: The first hot hipster chick to give me a ticket to Bloc Party TONIGHT gets the following:
Cash (Face Value)
Bottomless Can of PBR
Me singing
1 Boning (This could potentially lead to more bonings in the future)
Thank you,
Chris
ps- I will also request "This Modern Love" and sing you the words, as a post-boning show of my gratitude for the ticket.
Overall, the show was amazing. I kicked myself all year for missing them in the fall, but this show was well worth the wait. They are all kickass musicians and the british thing doesn't hurt either. It's just sad to think that that was probably the last time I'll be able to see them in a venue that small. Towards the end of the show Kele told us about Webster Hall and lots of people booed. He asked us what was wrong with webster hall and some guy shouted "it sucks!" Kele said, "well where should we play then?" and this guy said "CBGBs!" Of course that made everyone laugh, including Kele. He said "Here that Vice Records!? CBGBs." Too bad nothing like that will ever happen. Oh well, let me not get sad - the show was excellent!
the set list:
the setlist I got was not one that was actually put on stage because of the correction. but that doesn't really matter to me!
sorry it took so long!
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