Bloc Party, Absentee - Astoria, London - Friday 2nd February 2007

I went to this gig with reasonably low expectations - it had been a while since I was really regularly listening to much of Bloc Party's music; I had had little chance to hear any of their new songs, and in any case thought that they might require hard work before you could really get into them. Having said all that, I'm really glad I went, because my modest expectations were comprehensively exceeded.

Except, that is, by the support bill. This was the last of 3 Bloc Party nights at the Astoria, and there had been a different support each evening. Missing Fields and in particular Metric, did not make me happy, especially when tonight's offering was Absentee, a band that had never really excited me before when listening to their recorded stuff.

And now I know why they had never caught my attention - I thought they were awful. Their set seemed to plod along forever, with dismal and dreary music, and not much hint of energy from the band on stage. Not that many in the audience seemed to like it either - absolutely not my cup of tea at all. The singer's voice was so deep that it was hard to hear any lyrics, and they just seemed to set the whole set onto a down.

Because of the club nights on at the Astoria, most gigs there finish reasonably early - and certainly by 10pm. I was surprised, though, that when Bloc Party came on at around 8:45, the upstairs was still half empty, and the downstairs was by no means packed at that point. Obviously some Astoria amateurs that weren't getting in early enough.

Their loss, because the band got off to a flyer of a set, Like Eating Glass making an early appearance to a great audience reception, closely followed by new single The Prayer. There was a sprinkling of songs from their new album, but a very pleasing number of their fantastic old songs - reminding me just how damn good many of them are. Banquet was a very obvious highlight, along with Little Thoughts, which is apparently a fairly rare live treat.

The new songs sounded good, but as suspected, I think I need another few listens to get properly into them - none were immediately amazing as I recall. But for me, so were many of the songs from their first album - it took me a while to really get to like Banquet even. So, a great live set is always a good way to go, because it now means that I'll buy the album and give it the necessary few listens. A very good set by a band that write epic songs, and that sound frankly marvellous when they play them live.