A little embarrassed but I do want to share my experience with my Forum friends so "here we go".

Phase 1 - Brisbane Riverstage
My friends and family think we're crazy, and I wonder myself, why would we book flights and buy tickets to 4 Chemical Brothers shows around Australia? The experience I had at their show in 2008 has not left me and I need to feel that again as much as I can while I can. If they hadn't come back to Aus this year I probably would have gone overseas to see them, but they are coming here and I am going to take full advantage of this tour.

So here is my story, I apologise in advance for my lack of words that do justice to this whole experience. Remember I have only seen them once before 3 years ago, so I make a big deal out of things that probably won't excite you seasoned fans.

So March 4th we drive just over an hour to Williamtown aiport, north of Newcastle in NSW Australia, and fly to Brisbane on flight DJ1105. Only an hour flight, into a taxi to our hotel which is only a few hundred metres from the Riverstage, the venue for the show. Things aren't looking good though cause it is pissing rain. What a choice hotel though, and the view over the Botanic Gardens are beautiful.
The City Botanic Gardens from our hotel balcony. Riverstage is in the far right corner, a natural grass amphitheatre backing onto the river.

Only a few hours to go and we can hear the sound checks from our room, plenty of volume, the Chems are going to be heard for miles around tonight.

Around 6pm we hear the music start up from our hotel. We listened to Art vs Science come and go, weren't that interested, then we heard Zane Lowe start. We thought the Chems were going to be on around 9 so at 7:30pm started to make our way over. Once we found a reasonable spot Zane Lowe plays his last track, James Holroyd came and then after a very short time we heard Tomorrow never knows start to play. Straight away Glenda and I looked at each other, here it comes and so soon. They were starting at 8:10pm, not 9:10pm.

Riverstage, the vibe was electric, the rain made it even better!

After a couple of minutes I saw Tom and Ed come onto the stage, here it comes, the anticipation is overwhelming. The stage is dark and some lights start spinning around the light rings. The first bass beat kicks and the crowd just roars. Galvanize got the whole place pumping. A great start to the show.


The footage I took wasn't as bad as I thought, I guess. It's in HD. It was hard not to jump around. The audio is pretty bad as the recorder was in my pocket in a thick plastic bag, the crowd noise is a bit overpowering.

Galvanize drops back to just a drum beat, the stage goes dark, everyone calms down a little and then the visuals flash up and Do It Again starts, everyone just gets right into it. The place was electric.



Do It Again finishes up with our favorite clown singing "Just get yourself high" which then blends into "Horse Power". Horse Power live is just epic, the crowd loves it and really gets the place moving. Amazing!

Horse Power ends with a really nice move into Chemical Beats, the mood of the crowd slows a little as everyone listens to the genius of the Chems doing their beats.

Next Swoon overtakes Chemical Beats, what a beautiful track, I love how it just makes me glow inside. If ever a song can give off the feeling of love, this is it. Almost brings tears to my eyes it was so beautiful.


As Swoon is coming to an end I hear a familiar beat, but it's different, and then it's gone and Swoon finishes with a really nice bit of synth work. But that beat just before, I was right .. here comes Star Guitar! but new ... OMG amazing!! What another beautiful piece of work, taking us on a whole new journey. Definitely another crowd pleaser.

Star Guitar starts to wind down, then a very subtle change into Three Little Birdies Down Beats. Then .. another familiar sound, the crowd screams, everyone knows what is coming.

Hey Boy Hey Girl .. a timeless classic gets everyone dancing. I can't help but imagine 9000 skeletons dancing around the Riverstage.

Next is Don't Think, fabulous track, 9000 crazy people dancing in the rain ... perfect!

Another familar sound, but different again, changing it up just makes these classic tracks so much better! Out of Control ... I was out of control dancing like fucking mad.


A really nice smooth blend into Setting Sun, awesome! A bit too short, but they are putting so many amazing tracks into this set, "it doesn't matter".


The mood mellows again as Saturate comes on, absolutely beautiful.

Believe was amazing, one of my favorites of the night, along with the visuals it was incredible. Definitely travelling music and I was travelling ...

Escape Velocity, what can I say ... it is even bigger live, if that is possible. No wonder the young people love it, those builds ... and then when the beat kicks in the whole place went wild, me included. Finishing off with the Golden Path vocals was magical.

I had only listened to Superflash once before, liked it but didn't realise how good it really was until hearing it live. Amazing track, epic dance track, another highlight of the night for me. And finishing it with the clowns, and the "you are all my children now!" in a voice so low it was vibrating the ground I stood on and every organ in my body ... WOW!

Leave Home followed by Block Rockin Beats were amazing, and the finish of BRB with a whole bunch of amazing sounds.

The finish of the main set we were left with 3-4 minutes of this amazing pulse, like a heart beat. The people around didn't realise this was the end of the set and should be calling for an encore, but the vibe coming out of the place was immense, Tom and Ed would have felt the crowd and how much they were loving it.

What can I say about Snow and Surface to Air blended together, those tracks were meant for each other and it just melts your soul. Beautiful, beautiful music, I think I left my body and just floated around the arena to that perfect music! More tears in the eyes to this one.

Here i go round again again again, think that i will never come down again again again. Hoops was really trippy followed by a bit of Dissolve, would have liked more but once it started to change into The Private Psychedelic Reel, I wasn't complaining. What a show closer, the Reel is fucking brilliant and left the whole place on a massive high.

Walking back from the show through the Botanic Gardens was really cool, a long stream of people, everyone in a party mood and raving about the show. The Chemical Brothers left a mark on Brisbane that night!

Glenda and I ended up drinking and talking about the show till about 5 am. What were we thinking, we had another show to attend that night!

Most excellent, Krisper! What a great review for what seems like a great show! :D Thank you so much for sharing yours and Glenda's Chemical Brothers experience! You both are crazy, I love it, hahaha!!

whirlygirl, on 07 March 2011 - 07:41 AM, said:

Agree completely! Great review, Krisper. Keep 'em coming for the rest of the shows. It's getting me excited for seeing them in Miami in 3 weeks.




Tim

You're never too old. I like crowd the chemical brothers tend to pull to there gigs. From old indie hipsters/ravers older than me to young eager ones who have seen the light and dont know what has hit them when they watch it. And it seems they're all into all sorts of musical tastes and live different types of cultures too. Intriguing.

<3

Thanks Krisper.

Awesome review. We all appreciate you taking the time to share--great way to pump up those who are going to catch them sometime in the near future and allow those who won't a glimpse into the set.

whooohooohoo! excellent. wish I had been there. thanks mate.

Phase 2 - Future Music Festival Brisbane

The next day after the Riverstage show was The Future Music Festival which goes from 12 till 10pm. By the time we woke up, got something to eat, showered etc it was around 5:30pm so we grabbed a taxi over to Doomben racecourse.

We had to walk the last 2 blocks and there were so many people around, totally covered in mud, it was so funny. At a festival like this if you were in your 30's you were old, so we stood out a bit, but we didn't give a fuck.


So we made our way in to the main stage were the Chems were going to play later in the night. We caught some of the Presets, Stafford Brothers, Dizzee Rascal and James Holroyd before the Chems came on. Presets were Ok, and really liked James Holroyd, the others didn't do much for me but they had loads of fans and the crowd was going pretty wild.


How much fun to be young and dance around in the mud. Glenda and I found a mound of gravel that was perfect for us old folk, no mud and a good view.

Before the Chems started, half the place emptied out after Dizzee Rascal. Could easily have got closer but the whole front section was 6" deep in mud, no thanks.

Then The Chemical Brothers started and straight away you could see that their show is on a whole different level to anyone else. Headliners by a friggin mile. This time I could see the stargate stretched out full height as the Riverstage wasn't high enough to show it off fully. Luckily it wasn't pissing rain either and I got to record a lot more stuff. Not that I have studied it in any detail, but pretty sure the set list was the same as the night before.



Galvanize


Do It Again

Saturate

I really wanted to get a good recording of Superflash but the moment it starts to play the guy in front of me decides to turn around and ask what show my shirt was from, and a bunch of other stuff. So I had to scrap that recording, dammit.


Believe

The last 8 minutes of the show.

The Chems only had 1.5 hours to play which meant no encore for the Future Festival, a shame for these people.

So far my planning for the Brisbane adventure had been perfect, I had planned everything up to getting to Future but it lacked an escape plan! What a fuck up, we ended up walking for almost 2 hours before we finally managed to grab a taxi. It was still a great night and it added to the whole adventure.

So we finished this leg with the plane back to Newcastle, through all the airport bullshit, jump in the car and whats playing on the radio, The Chemical Brothers live at the Big Day Out in 2000, what a way to end.

I'll add more later on but your review has got me really got me going 300 mph right now! I'm super excited for Coachella, but for you to come to do back to back shows is testament to what the fans can bring.... and that is alot of energy.... no matter how far the gig is at!

thx for this cool review with pics and stuff. too bad, there was no encore at the future festival. hopefully on other festivals the chems are sheduled for about two ours.

Hey Kisper.

You've just made me uber excited now! How the hell am I supposed to work for the rest of today and tomorrow with an awesome review like that!

Can't believe its only one more sleep away to MELBOURNE!

Love the reviews so far Krisper!

Kwiddle and all of the other Aussies, have a blast!

(Darn that guy for messing up the Superflash recording!)

Krisper, on 06 March 2011 - 10:10 PM, said:

Love this!

That's just pure epicness!

I thought the review was quick to the point! Your camera did a fair job of the vids and pics (alot of hands in the air on the robot pic) As long as you can remember these gigs Krisper, it will never fade away. I would suggest to you (and other fans) to start getting your pics framed! I say this because I need a constant reminder of what I witnessed, as well a memory reminder of what these shows meant to me. I have pics that I want to use, as well with CD album covers (of the tour that they played their lastest album) and my ticket stubs, and flyers, and get them all together for a collage of sorts! I'm having trouble remembering things from the past gigs that I went to, but I do know that doing 2 shows in a row is better than going to one, plus it will be imprinted on your brain and will last longer!

Great review! You deserve the Chemical salute!

One more thing....When you said "At a festival like this if you were in your 30's you were old, so we stood out a bit, but we didn't give a fuck." It gave me a big ass smile ! (I'm 36)

Thanks everyone for all the kind words. But it's not over yet, we fly to Melbourne in the morning and I am just as excited now as I was before the 1st show. I am hoping to get some better pictures, and video. Wish I had a camera that knew what to do with the intense lights.

I am so glad the forum is back up. I was missing this thread with my morning coffee! It's so hard to hold off on viewing the videos

inchemwetrust, on 07 March 2011 - 11:53 PM, said:

Totally - Chemical Salute x1000. In the words of Pete Tong when debuting Escape Velocity, 'you're never too old to rave!'

Personally I find it so hard to take photos, let alone video, when I'm at a Chemical Brothers show. I get so caught up in the moments, so I'm grateful for people that have their wits about them enough to take pictures as it's happening.

Krisper, on 08 March 2011 - 2:01 AM, said:

You're a Mad Man!!!!

Krisper, on 07 March 2011 - 12:10 AM, said:

Epic pic, it's my new background.

WhiteNoise, on 10 March 2011 - 8:35 AM, said:

I got more, took a shit loads of photos in Melbourne last night. A quick look through and I think I got some good ones, but before I do anything, Sydney in a few hours!