Thursday, 8 November 2007

A Weekend in the City (2006–present)


The band released their second album, called A Weekend in the City on February 5, 2007 in the UK and February 6 in the United States. The album debuted at #12 in the Billboard 200 with 48,000 copies sold. It became available via the UK's iTunes store a day ahead of schedule, on February 4, and reached the #2 spot in the Official UK Chart. The album also climbed all the way to #2 on CMJ's Top 200 college radio chart. The album was produced by Jacknife Lee. The first single, "The Prayer", was released on January 29. This single had been located on their MySpace since November 22, 2006. In the build up to the release of the album, Zane Lowe aired a live set from Maida Vale featuring a mix of old songs and new ones on his evening radio show on BBC Radio 1 on January 30, 2007. On February 1, 2007, A Weekend in the City was made available to listen to for free through the band's official MySpace page.

The next single, "I Still Remember", is their first American single. The band released their third single "Hunting for Witches" with an accompaning video clip in August 2007. In October 2007 it was announced that Bloc Party would release a new single, Flux, on November 12 - ahead of their end of year gigs. The track was also produced by Jacknife Lee and can therefore be assumed to be a continuation of the sound of their last album.

The band's first gig following the release of AWITC was on February 5 at Reading Hexagon. It was broadcast live on BBC's Music Station 6 Music that night as well. On May 20, 2007, Bloc Party headlined on the 'in new music we trust' stage at the Radio 1 Big Weekend at Preston. Bloc Party played at the UK leg of Live Earth on July 7, 2007 at Wembley Stadium and T in the Park and Oxegen 07 that same weekend, as well as Glastonbury and the Reading and Leeds Festivals 2007. Bloc Party have announced a tour of Australia and New Zealand in August 2007, with a special appearance at the Splendour in the Grass Festival on August 5. On September 17, 2007 they recorded a set for the PBS show Austin City Limits, a day after playing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

On 27 October 2007 the band performed a set at London's Roundhouse with the Exmoor Singers, a London based choir as part of the BBC Electric Proms. The set included songs from both Silent Alarm and A Weekend In The City along with the first UK performance of their new single Flux.

On 3 November 2007 the band performed in Dublin's Phoenix Park in front of 10,000 fans, this was their biggest headline act so far. During the concert they tried to play new single flux but couldn't because of difficluties getting the keyboard to work. The final song of the night was The Pioneers ,which was played as an encore.

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