Hecklergigs - Bloc Party @ Newcastle Carling Academy 22/2

Hecklerspray loves a good gig. In fact we’ve been to so many musical shenanigans that we can’t physically remember half the ones we’ve been to. Nearly every week, our inbox is rammed to capacity with the cool and not so cool bands begging us to come see them rock out on stage.

Of course we oblige to these requests and get given star-studded VVIP treatment. That’s Very Very Important Person. VIP is not good enough for us. Bus despite being treated like royalty, sometimes we like to get back to our dark and dingy indie roots and share the experience with all the other sweaty kids. We don’t like to stay in our royal box all the time. And what better occasion to do this with one of the UK’s most loved bands at the moment, Bloc Party? 

Now, after spending many years at various gigs - be it rave, folk, rock or indie - we’ve come to realise that there are certain unwritten rules. Even so, we are still learning them. For instance, when we arrived at last night's gig we made the mistake of wearing a spotless white t-shirt with a few drawings covering some of it. Bad move. As soon as Bloc Party came on, the colour of our clothing had shifted to purple as the morons around us who had payed £3.15 for their pint decided it was far better to chuck it around. 

Trendy indie girls are also a common laugh at these gigs. Before the main band comes on, they're blissfully unaware that as soon as the first riff starts up, the crowd is going to be pushing and scrambling around all night. When this happens, a surge of underage kids who’ve sneaked in quickly leg it to the back to survive the gig and make sure they don’t break any of their Topshop beads. Many people - including us - were pushed to the floor and trampled on last night as some people took it upon themselves to play human dodgems with everyone else. But to be fair, who would want to stay motionless to Bloc Party?

With their album A Weekend In The City already being hailed as one of 2007’s best, the crowd were going mad for it as they tore through album tracks to whoops and cheers all night long. As the album's been out for a good couple of weeks, the majority of the sold-out crowd were doing frontman Kele’s job for him as they sang their hearts out again and again.

We were worried that Bloc Party weren’t going to be able to replicate the complicated sounds of the album on to the live circuit. The album contains many technical and layered studio effects which would be hard to pull off, but amazingly they did a cracking way of doing it. The distorted and eerie-sounding Hunting For Witches was pulled off with excellence. It wasn’t just the new record that was played either - older material from the band's first album Silent Alarm was hammered out as well, with all the main singles like Helicopter, Banquet, So Here We Are and Like Eating Glass all getting a rapturous response.  

Whilst we can’t pick out a particular moment that we enjoyed - probably because it all added to an epic performance - one of the bizarre highlights was the crowdsurfer who didn’t quite achieve his aim. Being a big bloke didn’t initially help him and as people struggled to lift him over the heads of everyone else, his enormous bulk buckled under everyone else and he fell straight to the ground, smashing his face in the process. Do we have any sympathy? No, not really, as crowdsurfers are usually annoying twats who think it’s hilarious to crush people and kick them in the head with their zany antics.    

This was our second time seeing Bloc Party and the difference between the two is suitably noticeable. The new record shows a much more grown-up sound which has also come across with the live performance. Everything is a lot tighter and most of all, the band seem to be enjoying themselves - which is always a plus. Seeing moody-looking bands who look like they can’t be arsed to be there is always is a disappointment.