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Bloc Party celebrates 20 years with huge show at Crystal Palace, packed with youthful tunes

Posted on by angelo
Bloc Party celebrates 20 years with huge show at Crystal Palace, packed with youthful tunes

Bloc Party performed a one-off show in London this weekend to celebrate 20 years as a band. Check out footage from the show, fan reactions and the full setlist below.

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

It was also their biggest concert to date, performing in front of 15,000 people for two hours, and featuring special guests including Friendly Fires, The Mysterines, Connie Constance and The Hives. For the latter, this concert was a UK exclusive.

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

“We’ve heard from a lot of people that they couldn’t get tickets for the ‘Silent Alarm’ shows (2018/2019), so a one-off summer party with that and the bangers seems like the right thing to do.”

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the two-hour set was taken up by truckloads of their 2005 breakthrough album, as well as other of their greatest hits from across their entire discography.

Although they played the vast majority of “Silent Alarm,” they didn’t present the track list in chronological order — instead, they opened the set with fan favorite “So Here We Are” and integrated other songs into the 24-song setlist.

Other tracks from the album included “Banquet”, “Helicopter”, “Price Of Gasoline”, “Like Eating Glass”, “Blue Light”, “This Modern Love” and “Positive Tension”. Other tracks performed that night included “Song For Clay (Disappear Here)” – which was performed with a sample 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”.

Check out the full setlist and fan-captured footage below.

Bloc Party’s London setlist was:

‘So here we are’
“Like eating glass
‘Plans’
“Witch Hunt”
‘Mercury’
“Flirting again”
“Price of gasoline”
‘Blue light’
“Song for Clay (Disappear Here)” (Featuring a sample of Be The One by Dua Lipa)
‘Banquet’
“Traps”
“Different Drugs” (dedicated to the guy who smokes weed)
‘One more chance’
‘Blue’
“I still remember” (dedicated to teachers)
“Positive tension”
‘Prayer’
“Two more years”
‘Skeleton’
“She hears voices”
‘Flow’
‘Helicopter’
“This Modern Love” (dedicated to young people of the first day)
‘Ratchet’

Shortly after the show, fans also took to social media to share their reaction to the massive London concert, with many hailing it as one of the best performances of Bloc Party’s career. “What a headliner, not a bad song in this show. Kele is an amazing frontman but I’m most obsessed with Louise on drums,” one wrote on X/Twitter.

Another shared: “I won’t name names but someone (me) totally couldn’t hold up during it, I still remember it. It was an absolutely brilliant Bloc Party show,” while a third added: “Watching Bloc Party again made me feel good.”

Check out more fan reactions below.

Okereke and company’s show came just days after the band released new single ‘Flirting Again’ ahead of their Glastonbury 2024 performance.

Featuring an indie-disco soundscape, the track is about meeting again after heartbreak and “finding yourself thrust into the scene (while) trying to remember how it all works.”

“It’s about trying to appear desirable, while hiding the pain that defines you,” Okereke explains of the inspiration behind the single. “We all carry within us the different scars we’ve accumulated over the years, the heartbreaks that have shaped the way we give and receive love. This song is about picking yourself up and moving on.”