Are you hoping for a miracle?

A rare moment of genuine musical and intellectual satisfaction rolls into town

By Sofie Jenkinson

An expectant set of bright eyes and pricked up ear drums met a modest Bloc Party as they stumbled back onto such a well known stage, already used twice to peddle debut album Silent Alarm. A lot of time has passed since then, hell we’ve even got a new (scarily right wing) Pope, but in the end it’s worth the waitwhen the next step is this spot on.

With the first mark on tonights blank page parallel to their first step out of hiding, the dark consuming bass of The Prayer reaches out over a sea of outstretched fingers and thumbs, each moment of climax like a star pricked on a dim, oily, velveteen sky. Frantic drumbeats fill intermittent moments of silence in an otherwise continuous wall of sound, fragile shaky vocals tred the eggshells that fall inbetween the cracks in this fresh young set.

A sublimely delicate blend of the classic disco edge of older tracks and the sinister nature of those more recent, each note building an increasingly confident and solid set, much more so than ever before.

Although met with a certain amount of unrest the minimal amount of new songs from two day old A Weekend In The City do not feel as though they hit a cold face of boredom through lack of recognition, either a product of the Internet or simply the fire in the belly of these songs. Song For Clay (Disappear Here) gives wagging tongues a full minute to flex before knocking the stuffing out of the entire room with its thumping war drums and deep cutting guitar. Similarly Waiting For The 7.18 waits a good few minutes before teaming impeccably timed silence, climax and heartfelt lyrics “If I could do it again I’d climb more trees/I’d pick and I’d eat more wild blackberries.”

Time and again effortlessly proving their worth, they have got so much more heart than most, you can see it in their eyes. As the set reaches full momentum Okereke accounces “This is my present to you Cardiff! and launces into This Modern Love. Never has it been more apparent that this band are the perfect voice of a generation, so often so lost. Frequently offering such sticky sweetness on the lips of a sentiment so bitter.

We live in a world where the lifestyle of young people is constantly glamorised and drawn upon in a variety of pitiful ways, by adults, that make young people themselves want to choke on their pizza, Skins being the epitome of such a thing. It is therefore no real surprise that there are hordes of people running towards Bloc Party with open arms. Refreshingly accurate lyrics, both in the throws of a hazy evening and in the cold light of day, lie hand in hand with stomach churningly inspiring instrumentation at every turn. When Bloc Party sing out ‘Are you hoping for a miracle?’ the thousands of flailing arms and lyrics screamed back answer and conclude a firm, resounding ‘Yes!’