Bloc Party return over Christmas

Bloc Party returned to the ended of the Christmas period. The band member singer Kele Okereke, guitarist Russell Lissack, bassist Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong.

It was attended by the message: “Merry Christmas from the Bloc. X”

Okereke has launched a solo career under the pseudonym Kele, while Lissack has performed with Ash. It is not clear whether the pic marks the began of a return for the band.

Bloc Party dates and Brand New Single

This year out earlier, album of the bands debut has already been hailed as one of 2009's great reaching, and currently finished runner up in Drowned in Sound's alternative Mercury award the Neptune Music Prize. Personally invited have been grammatics to play main support on Bloc Party's 23 date 'Bloctober' tour, kicking off on 2nd October.

Live Dates

8th October - City Hall, Hull (w/ Bloc Party)

10th October - Academy, Sheffield (w/ Bloc Party)

11th October - Academy, Leeds (w/ Bloc Party)

12th October - Engine Shed, Lincoln (w/ Bloc Party)

14th October - Victoria Hall, Stoke (w/ Bloc Party)

15th October - Academy, Birmingham (w/ Bloc Party)

16th October - Centre, Newport (w/ Bloc Party)

18th October - Arena, Llandudno (w/ Bloc Party)

19th October - University, Liverpool (w/ Bloc Party)

20th October - Academy, Bristol (w/ Bloc Party)

22nd October - Hall For Cornwall, Truro (w/ Bloc Party)

23rd October - Pavilion, Plymouth (w/ Bloc Party)

24th October - Centre, Brighton (w/ Bloc Party)

26th October - Cliffs Pavilion, Southend (w/ Bloc Party)

27th October - Corn Exchange, Cambridge (w/ Bloc Party)

28th October - Rock City, Nottingham (w/ Bloc Party)

30th October - Rivermead, Reading (w/ Bloc Party)

31st October - BIC, Bournemouth (w/ Bloc Party)

Genre joy Bloc Party's

Bloc Party don't worry about their fans' opinions.
The pair say they are glad to change genres with every album they release as they always want a new challenge, even at the risk of alienating their supporters.
Asked about the effect the change in sound has on their fan base, bassist Gordon Moakes said: "That kind of thingworry was doesn't us.
"We've been conscious of that from when we were demoing. We come from a place of not needing to do what we've done before we've been talking about from day one. You might say we are no bigger a post punk band but why do what we've already done? That's how we've ended up where we are recently."
Despite an extensive back catalogue, the pair are always striving to give the best performance possible when they play live and scraps to make life easy for themselves.
Gordon added to the North Wales Chronicle newspaper: "I think in a way we've gone out of our way in how we attack our recording and how we then interpret that for the live stage. One of the most important things is how we play that music instead of pre combining it into a hard drive.
"I know it mean for me a lot for me to be honest about how we replicated tracks, I didn't just need to let the backing track go, I needed to find an actual way of going that. That has been an interesting journey. I have learned a lot learned to play some instruments better. It's a bit of a non sequiter, but someone said if you're not learning you should quit. That's a nice analogy to put into music."

Top 5 interrupted gigs, Music poll

The Doors' 1967 gig at the New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut tops the list of most famous interrupted gigs, according to a current poll by the ticket agency, viagogo.
During that performance or half-performance singer Jim Morrison was arrested on stage by police for breaking the state's obscenity laws and inciting the crowd to riot. (In a video below, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek gives a full account of the incident.)
A 2007 concert in Utrecht, Holland by Bloc Party comes in a close second: The band stopped playing when the crowd spotted a couple having sex in the audience. This prompted other members of the crowd to do the nasty. Realizing they were now in the midst of an orgy, Bloc Party exited the stage.
Third place goes to Britney Spears for her May 2009 gig in Vancouver. Britney stormed off the stage after 15 minutes, claiming the auditorium was too smoky and she was uncomfortable with the number of fans smoking marijuana. Spears returned to the stage 40 minutes later and admonished her fans for smoking weed.
The Top 5 interrupted gigs
1. 9 December 1967 - The Doors, New Haven Arena, New Haven, ConnecticutJim Morrison was arrested on stage by local police for attempting to incite a riot.

2. 28 April 2007 - Bloc Party, Utrecht, HollandRampant sex stops the gig. After a couple in the audience started getting it on, the crowd started cheering and followed suit. The band brought the concert to an early end. (Talk about premature climaxes!)
3. 8 April 2009 - Britney Spears, GM Place Stage, Vancouver, British ColumbiaBritney Spears sulks off the stage, reportedly saying it was too smoky in the venue for her to perform. Fans were stunned at her reaction and booed her for leaving. When she returned, she told the audience not to smoke pot.
4. 7 June 1977 - The Sex Pistols, River Thames, LondonHaving just released God Save The Queen, The Sex Pistols performed on a private boat, sailing down the River Thames, past Westminster and the Houses Of Parliament. The event was designed to mock the Queen's river procession planned for two days later to celebrate her Silver Jubilee, but it ended in chaos with police forcing the boat to dock and constabulary surrounded the gangplanks on the pier.
5. 21 February 2008 - Vampire Weekend, ULU, LondonThe pair abandoned the stage at the Shockwaves NME Awards Show after the fire alarm sounded mid-way through the appropriately titled The Kids Don't Stand A Chance, forcing the Brooklyn band and the audience to evacuate the building.
As for us, we would have voted for the many incidents during The Rolling Stones' free concert at the Altamont Speedway in 1969 (drummer Marty Balin for the opening act Jefferson Airplane got knocked out by a Hells Angel; later, the Stones stopped playing several times because of fights breaking out in the crowd and then, of course, there was that horrifying stabbing).

Bloc will call for referendum on NATO and Russian language status

The bloc of leftists is planning to call for a referendum on a Common Economic Space (CES), Ukraine's attitude to NATO and the Russian language stats, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko has said.
"We'll definitely hold a referendum on three issues a Common Economic Space (CES), Ukraine's attitude to NATO and the Russian language status," the party's press service quoted him as saying on Thursday.
Symonenko said that leftist bloc members would call for Russian to be rendered the national status in Ukraine.
As reported, the leaders of four parties Petro Symonenko (the Communist Party), Yuriy Zahorodniy (the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united)), Stanislav Nikolayenko (the Justice Party), and Vasyl Volha (the Union of Leftists) signed the agreement an agreement on creating the bloc of leftists and center leftists at a meeting in Kyiv on September 14.
At the same time, the leaders of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) and the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) Natalia Vitrenko and Oleksandr Moroz – refused to join the union.
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Merkel centre-right majority Latest German poll gives

BERLIN (Reuters) German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives have enough support to form a center right alliance with the business friendly Free Democrats (FDP), a new poll showed on Tuesday.
The poll by Allensbach for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper put support for Merkel's conservative bloc down 1 point at 35 percent and the FDP up a point at 13.5 percent.
Their combined score of 48.5 percent exceeds that of the other three major parties the SPD, Greens and Left party put together.
The SPD was up 1.5 points at 24 percent, the Greens down one point to 11 percent and the Left down half a point to 11.5 percent.

Europa League launch: bloc party Still flawed

Tonight looks the big launch of the Europa League Uefa's latest attempt to add lustre to the Uefa Cup, a competition which has paled into insignificance compared to the Champions League.
The main criticism levelled at the Uefa Cup has been the unwieldy, 40 team group stage when the likes of Bolton would rather rest players than win a European tie you know you have trouble.
Aside from the name change, the big news is Uefa has done the only reasonable increased the event to 48 teams. In the arranger's defence, they have tried to simplify the format with 12 groups of four teams playing everyone home and away as opposed to the old five team pair playing each other once.

BLOC PARTY IGNORE VIDEOS

Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke says he is distressed with the band's promotional videos as the end report is never as good as the planned footage.
Bloc Party don't care about their videos.
Frontman Kele Okereke says he never watches their promotional clips back as they never turn out the way they were initially imagined.
He said: "With the video making operation I don't pay consider anymore. You always get these intervention advised to you then you get the video and it looks nothing like the intervention do I made a decision of letting others decide because it's not actually worth an argument. So 'Flux', I've only seen it a few times, I don't watch videos much. Some members of the band are more opinionated on what they do and don't like and I trust them. We tend to get things done."
The singer whose pair performed at the Reading and Leeds festivals last week also admitted he dislikes playing festivals because it is "hard work."
He explained to Absolute Radio DJ Simon Mundie: "I guess it's lots of people in a field and when it's good it's a great feeling but you never actually know. It's not like doing your own show, it's harder work and I'm lazy."

Featuring Radiohead, Block Party And More, Frequenvcy Festival

Frequency Festival
Austria
Since breaking onto the indie scene with 2005s artistic debut album ‘Silent Alarm’, Bloc Party have always attracted the haters.
The people who criticise Kele’s awkwardness as a front man or pour scorn on their effort to vary their sound will never be convinced by this London’s four piece’s effort to push their sound forward. Yes, they are capable of equal amounts of hits and misses and yes, they are at times just mirroring what TV on The Radio are achieve across the pond with varying results but since headlining The Other stage at this year’s Glastonbury, they have become a band possessed.
They built the bar high by putting in such a strong show supporting headliners Radiohead. No biggest the puny indie band of yore, Bloc Party are now a robust rock band not afraid to throw in elements of other genres with a surprisingly high amount of excellent songs to carry off a set of such importance.
The Euro trance authority of ‘Flux’ which sounded laboured on record now soars in exactly the same way a great dance record does on drugs. Similarly, latest single ‘One More Chance’ which again doesn’t quite work recorded, live forces the crowd into a genuine late 80s dance party vibe and is already a perfect festival anthem and 'One Month Off' comes off sounding like a twisted Ed Rush and Optical drum n bass work out, all this AND they are able to drop 'So here we are', their finest track; from their set; a roaring success.
As anyone who has experienced Radiohead live will know, they are a mesmerising band who demand every second of your concentration. To add to that, you’ve also got the added excitement of it being their first ever show in Austria as well as the commonly signs on the video screen declaring an impending thunderstorm, which held out til the following day and lasted…all day.
Using the same solar powered lighting system and monochrome video montages of each band member playing as they have done for the whole of their tour in support of 'In Rainbows', it adduce great relief from the rest of the video wall movie which at best was laughable for every other band at the festival.
Despite playing a similar set for the best part of two years now, the tinkering of the set list keeps it fresh each time. An eerie silence permeates through the crowd as they clatter into 'In Rainbow' opener '15 Step', the mellow electronic thump of ‘Kid A’ is sandwiched between a soaring ‘All I need’ and a furious run through of ‘The National Anthem’. ‘Jigsaw falling into place’ proves to be the best track live from their last album while a double whammy of ‘Bodysnatchers’ and ‘Idioteque’ induces a mass of angry dance offs through the site.
Currently released track ‘These are my twisted words’ already sounds like classic Radiohead and live it drops everybody’s jaws with its atmospheric drama closing with the binding techno-isms of 'Everything in its right place.
So for one night only, Austria was theirs for the taking...they did and Austria loved them for it. Astounding.

Bloc Party – One More Chance

Bloc Party have backed a lot of ground since 2004s “Silent Alarm”. Gone are the jagged hooks, mournful howling and perhaps some of the expectation too.
“One More Chance” is the latest single from the London clemence and it signals a further progression on the path towards total electronica. The song opens with a solid beat before being joined by a piano riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on a ‘90s Ibiza compilation.
Kele’s “Give me one more chance to love you” opening at least assure us that Bloc Party themes of rejection and loss are still present. Some things will never change. After coming to terms with the piano, the track colonize down into a acceptable but uninspiring blend of bass-heavy chorus and a New-Order style of percussion.
Whilst “One More Chance” is a perfectly enjoyable tune, it would be a lie to say that it shows Bloc Party at their best.
Maybe one day the boys will get scare stiff of playing with synthesizers and start to play actual music again. Until then, this will do…