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.
