Bloc Party @ King Tut's

Planned as an opportunity to showcase the new songs recorded for their second album, Bloc Party couldn't resist playing a few golden oldies, sending the crowd into an orgiastic frenzy and nearly collapsing the floor in the excitement. The usual world-rending, death-call drums thumped under the new tunes, with a new found whimsy in lyrics like "let's drive down to Brighton at the weekend," and the usual twinkling, augmented drones strangled from an array of expensive looking guitars. Okerke and chums, with the audience in their well-groomed hands, have the look of rock stars proper, with the requisite checklist of a moody guitarist with hair flopped over limpid eyes and a sexually ambiguous front man with a killer afro fulfilled, yet the intellectualised rage of their first album seems to have been somewhat abandoned and the audience seem respectful, but reserved, when they play the new stuff. Still, a truly amazing performance from a great band that hopefully won't, like Adonis, turn into pretty little narcissi if they perish prematurely. [Jasper Hammill]