For followers of mid-2000s indie, having Kasabian’s secret set at The Woodsies conflict with Bloc Occasion on The Different Stage might be one thing of a Sophie’s Selection.
However, actually, when contemplating the relative deserves of the pair, it looks like a simple choice to make in the event you’re a fan of extra artistic, angular and art-rock over pure, lager-lobbing bangers. Bloc Occasion are celebrating 20 years of their career-high, debut album Silent Alarm, and, like many artists at Glastonbury this 12 months, that nostalgia bump appears to have given their inventory a major enhance; The Different Stage is heaving as they arrive.
Opening with a gorgeously woozy So Right here We Are and the uneven, bouncing, tabloid-baiting Looking For Witches, Kele Okereke’s crew nonetheless sound brilliantly idiosyncratic after twenty years of service. Kele’s voice stays soulful, pained and distinct and his band’s melding of disco beats, dubby bass and wiry post-punk riffs remind you why they by no means deserved to be dumped in alongside Razorlight, The Kooks and the remainder of the aimless, artless indie landfill growth of the noughties. A tune like Mercury has much more in frequent with Child A-period Radiohead than it does The Pigeon Detectives, which is presumably why Bloc Occasion’s second within the solar was so transient, a band who had been too difficult and odd to be gurning away on The Friday Evening Mission again in 2007.
As a substitute Bloc Occasion have experimented, advanced and performed the lengthy recreation, and in the present day, with youthful followers discovering their music many years after its launch, are handled with the reverence they deserve. “We’ve acquired a couple of extra rockets in our pockets,” Okereke smiles together with his tongue firmly in his cheek, earlier than detonating an superior model of Helicopter. It illicits the most important response of the set, however Bloc Occasion, by no means eager to play to the gallery, shut with the trinity of Flux, This Trendy Love and Ratchet, all of that are each bit their large hits equal. A reminder of simply how implausible and influential a band they’re and proof that Bloc Occasion can nonetheless compete with any innovative guitar music within the trendy period.