Bloc Party recovers in time to infect Chicago with a contagious show

March 28, 2009, at the Aragon Ballroom

By Selena Fragassi
Published: March 30th, 2009 | 11:35pm

There was no doubt that Chicago was ready for a Bloc Party on a cold and wet night that felt as if more than London’s “it” band had taken over the city.

“Thank you for coming out and being with us on such a miserable evening,” said lead singer Kele Okereke after opening the night’s set with a floor-rattling, speaker-blowing rendition of “One Month Off.” “We will do our best to entertain you.” Not one to disappoint, the band ripped through a 17-song, hour-and-a-half set that proved even the bitterness of bad weather couldn’t rain on the parade of a crowded room eager to welcome the British quartet back to the stage after the drought since its last appearance at 2008’s Lollapalooza.

It’s an interesting fact considering that on this evening festivals happened to be a sore subject, as an under-the-weather Okereke jabbed at the critics of the band’s last-minute cancellation from Miami’s Ultra Music Festival just two days before. “If you’re from Miami, I’m not a racist,” he joked, “but I’ve never seen so many douche bags in one place … besides the U.K.”

With the change of place, it was apparent that bed rest was the furthest thing from Okereke’s mind, his sweating a mere side effect of scorching guitar solos and fever-pitch vocals in a show that delivered sheer precision on favorites like “Helicopter,” “Hunting for Witches,” and “Flux,” and even stepped up the sympathy card sensitivity on Gossip Girl hit “Signs”.

Often compared to staples like the Cure, Blur, and even U2, Bloc Party proved its ability to hold high stakes in the rock game with intricate layers that folded into the curves of each winding song for an unparalleled fluidity. Unlike the trip-hop and Brit-pop genres it’s often thrown into, Bloc Party banks on its own musical calculations of stylistic originality that fits somewhere in the gap of indie rock and good old-fashioned arena rock, as even the night’s venue proved.

“This is the first time we’ve ever rocked a palace,” said Okereke, commenting on the fantastical dragon paintings, decorative spires, and Stonehenge walls that leveraged the ballroom’s Camelot theme to a symbol of knighthood for the band, which has quickly ascended the rock caste system since its apprenticeship began in 2005.

Bloc Party proved the ultimate experiment in chemistry, as the musicians worked together to create near-epics on the catapulting energy of “Banquet” and the reverb-happy “Mercury,” whose distortion and party-anthem rhythm created a literal stomp across the dance floor that marched up to meet drummer Matthew Tong’s beat onstage.

A genuine MC who had just as much charisma dancing in silhouette as he did wiping his sweaty face with a towel, Okereke cut the show shorter than he had hoped, but without one final display of showmanship. “I knew I couldn’t let Chicago down,” he said about his quick recovery. “At least Bloc Party are not a bunch of quitters. We make these songs count.”
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For more photos from this show visit Venus Zine’s Flickr page
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SoundCitizen (over 3 years)
I commend them for playing through difficulties, for sure. That said, it was a disappointing show. And the Aragon may look like a palace, but it sounds like a shack. A two-person review can be read here, if you're interested: http://soundcitizen.com/bloc-party-concert-review-chicago/