Bloc Party celebrate 20 years with huge Crystal Palace show heavy on early material 

8 July, 2024

Kele Okereke of Bloc Party performs in 2024

Bloc Party played a huge one-off show in London over the weekend to celebrate 20 years as a band. Find footage of the gig, fan reactions and the full setlist below.

Kele Okereke and co. took to the stage at Crystal Palace Park in London last night (July 7), for a one-off show that marked the 20th anniversary of their debut album ‘Silent Alarm’.

It also marked their biggest headline show to date – performing to a 25,000-strong crowd for two hours, and featuring support from special guests Friendly Fires, The Mysterines, Connie Constance and The Hives. For the latter, the slot marked a UK exclusive performance.

“We’ve been having so much fun playing shows over the past year, so it makes sense to do something special for old and new fans, celebrating 20 years of Bloc Party,” explained frontman Okereke, announcing the show last year.

“We heard from a lot of people that they couldn’t get tickets for the [2018/2019] ‘Silent Alarm’ gigs, so a one-off summer party playing that and the bangers feels like the right thing to do.”

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the two-hour set was taken up by trucks from their seminal 2005 record, as well as more of their biggest hits from across their discography.

While they played the vast majority of ‘Silent Alarm’, they didn’t break out the tracklist in chronological order – instead opening the set with fan-favourite ‘So Here We Are’ and embedding other songs within the 24-song tracklist.

Others played from the album included ‘Banquet’, ‘Helicopter’, ‘Price Of Gasoline’, ‘Like Eating Glass’, ‘Blue Light’, ‘This Modern Love’ and ‘Positive Tension’. Other tracks performed on the night included ‘Song For Clay (Disappear Here)’ – which was performed with a snippet of Dua Lipa’s song ‘Be The One’ – ‘Different Drugs’, which was jokingly dedicated to a guy smoking weed in the crowd, and closing track ‘Ratchet’.

Find the full setlist and fan-captured footage below.

Bloc Party’s London setlist was:

‘So Here We Are’
‘Like Eating Glass
‘Plans’
‘Hunting for Witches’
‘Mercury’
‘Flirting Again’
‘Price of Gasoline’
‘Blue Light’
‘Song for Clay (Disappear Here)’ (With snippet of Be The One by Dua Lipa)
‘Banquet’
‘Traps’
‘Different Drugs’ (Dedicated to the guy smoking weed)
‘One More Chance’
‘Blue’
‘I Still Remember’ (Dedicated to teachers)
‘Positive Tension’
‘The Prayer’
‘Two More Years’
‘Skeleton’
‘She’s Hearing Voices’
‘Flux’
‘Helicopter’
‘This Modern Love’ (Dedicated to day ones)
‘Ratchet’

Soon after the set, fans also took to social media to share their response to the massive London show – with many hailing it as one of the best performances of Bloc Party’s career. “What a headline act, not a bad song in this set. Kele is an incredible frontman but I’m mainly obsessed with Louise on drums,” one wrote on X/Twitter.

Another shared: “Not naming any names but somebody (me) did not at all hold it together during i still remember. absolutely brilliant show from bloc party,” while a third added: “Watching bloc party again made my heart whole”.

Find more fan reactions below.

The show from Okereke and co. came just days after the band released a new single ‘Flirting Again’ in the run-up to their performance at Glastonbury 2024.

With an indie-disco soundscape, the track is about dating again after heartbreak, and “being thrust back into the scene [while] trying to remember how it all works.”

“It’s about trying to appear desirable, whilst at the same time hiding the hurt that defines you,” Okereke explained of the inspiration behind the single. “We are all carrying around the various scars that we have accumulated over the years, the heartbreaks that have come to shape how we give love and receive love. This song is about picking yourself up and carrying on.”

The post Bloc Party celebrate 20 years with huge Crystal Palace show heavy on early material  appeared first on NME.