Bloc Party and the rest of the Indies

Bloc Party - April 13th

I like Bloc Party - they sound very honest and unpretentious. Before writing about their music, let me open a parenthesis to say that I love Kele Okereke (the singer for you uncool ones). I think he is a f**king cool rock star and I fancy him a lot. There.

Now the concert. It was brilliant, because they felt at home, the audience was craving for them, and they played amazingly well. All hits that made them in one of the most requested bands of 2004/2005 were played. It would be redundant to itemise them, as I would just have to copy and paste the listing of the songs from their debut (and so far, only) album Silent Alarm. You can go to the HMV or Amazon websites and do that yourself.

Another reason for the success of this concert was the fact that The Rakes were playing as well, they were one of the two opening acts sharing the honour with Pretty Girls Make Graves. While the latter was quite dull, trying to mime something between Yeah Yeah Yeahs and any other American indie act, The Rakes showed that punk is not dead, but transformed. They are indeed one of the names to retain for the 2005/2006 season. Check out their website clicking here

Do Me Bad Things - April 14th

Do Me Bad Things are funny, kind of circus-esque,

By definition, hybrids cannot breed. But Do Me Bad Things are a crossbreed between two other hybrids: Scissor Sisters and The Darkness. I know it may sound a bit dodgy, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. The fact is that it’s not as good as it should either.

They do have a few hard-rock catchy camp songs such as “time for deliverance”, “what’s hideous”, and “the song rides”, who are brilliant examples. And these sounded good live.

They should lose the 3rd singer who sounds like Joe Cocker and keep Chantal and Nicolai only. They are camp as queer and sing really well.

I left before the concert ended.

Kaiser Chiefs - April 22nd

The Kaisers are good. They have been compared to Blur, and although I can see some similarities, I think they are original in what they do.

Their debut album “Employment”, besides being surrounded by a great marketing campaign is actually quite good and fresh sounding.

As Bloc Party and Do Me Bad Things it was going to be interesting to see how a band could build a concert around just one album. But it was quite good. They played the hits they were expected to, like my favourite “everyday I love you less and less”, and all others from the album.

They also have a great dress sense, without overdoing it (they are not Franz Ferdinand – the gods of the indie fashion), they summarise the indie dress code – they dress jeans and a jacket and they accessorise.