She's Hearing Voices

Bloc Party 4/8/05 Bowery Ballroom
Even though I didn't have a ticket for this show, I decided to try to get in anyway. I figured that even in the worse case scenario, Bowery Ballroom always lets extra people in right as the headliner goes on if you wait and hang out until then. Luckily, I didn't have to resort to that as I found a guy who was getting rid of his will-call ticket since he couldn't make it and he only charged me what it cost him to buy the ticket. Nice guy. Anyway openers The Ponys were passable neo-new-wave from Chicago with no memorable songs and an affected singer who tried to sound like Gang of Four's Jon King and it just wasn't convincing.

Bloc Party, on the other hand, were great and way better than they were at the Tribeca Grand Hotel back in October. They only played for less than an hour or so, but in that time they managed to play most of the songs off of their new album Silent Alarm (of which my favorites are "Like Eating Glass", "Helicopter", "Positive Tension" and "This Modern Love") as well as most of the songs on their 1st 2 singles, including "Banquet", "She's Hearing Voices", "The Marshals are Dead" and "Tulips". Despite their burgeoning popularity (they sold out both last night's show and the show the night before), you can still download a few of their songs here.

Also, I've never seen a higher concentration of skinny hipster girls in one place. Furthermore, it was amusing that next to me, a frat boy-ish lawyer talking with his blonde girlfriend about Dave Matthews and law school in New Jersey and what not. I wonder if he was at the wrong concert or if it's a sign that this band will be HUGE, much like what happened with Franz Ferdinand last year. They're certainly being hyped up enough, though in my view they're one of the few who deserve it, at least to some extent.