Kele finds love in Berlin

After Bloc Party’s debut album Silent Alarm, Kele Okereke spent time in Berlin with the intention of soaking up the artistic atmosphere there. His sojourn in the historic city was a major source of inspiration for the follow up album A Weekend In The City, with the song 'Kreuzberg' being the most obvious example. It contains the timeless lines: "Saturday night in East Berlin / We took the U-Bahn to the East Side Gallery / I was sure I'd found love with this one lying with me / Crying again in the Hauptbahnhof."

So here we are, Saturday night in East Berlin. It’s 2am in the coolest and most intimate club in town and Kele takes to the stage. Kele is totally transformed from the man who hung out in Berlin not so long ago. Over the past few months, since Bloc Party announced their hiatus, physically, his trademark hair has made way for cornrows; he has added some serious muscle mass, taken up kick-boxing and sports a different type of clothes. Musically, the three solo tracks which Kele has already put into the public domain are drastically different to Bloc Party’s work, leaving behind the latter’s guitars and exploring the broad spectrum of dance.

He opens with the percussion driven stomper 'Walk Tall' which goes down a treat, before speeding on to the instantly catchy 'On The Lam', followed by 'The Other Side'. A pace change. 'Everything You Wanted' gives everyone a chance to breathe and is arguably the song of the night, and at the very least a track to look out for when the album hits the streets later this month.

Then, Kele delves into his rockstar past. "I used to be in a band called Bloc Party," he says, the emphasis on the past causing Bloc Party fans' hearts to lurch, before launching into a medley of reimagined BP tunes. First comes an up-beat version of 'Blue Light', which is three-parts dance and one part eastern, which flows beautifully into 'The Prayer', which in turn slips into Bloc Party’s latest tune 'One More Chance'.

With foot to the floor, Kele’s up-and-coming single 'Tenderoni' pushes the turbo button and produces five-minutes of energy-filled madness with the singer hugging and embracing his followers before crowd-surfing in amongst them. Drained and back on stage, he dedicates 'Rise' to the superfans, a song which is both vocally and melodically far closer to Bloc Party than anything of his other solo stuff. 'All the Things I Could Never Say' is the slightly under-whelming follow up, before Kele ends the night with the Bloc Party classic 'Flux', which sends the audience into a wild frenzy, as he waltzes off into the Berlin night.

Overall, Kele found a delicate balance between old and new, the combo grooves brightly and his fresh persona is a definite success. The only criticism is that the set was incredibly short – but at €15 a go, you couldn’t help feeling it was still value for money.