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If the era of the big dance music event is over, no one has informed the Chemical Brothers. Taking over a cavernous and rather inhospitable venue that has been avoided by rock acts for a decade or more, Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands treated 10,000 fans to a typically extravagant show that not only recalled the rave parties of the 1990s but also echoed the great indoor "happenings" of the 1960s.
The usual gig conditions were turned on their head. Close up, there was comparatively little to be observed on the stage. Amid an escarpment of electronic equipment that included no musical instruments (of the traditional sort), the two men fiddled and twiddled.
Wearing the uniform of the modern sound boffin -jeans, T-shirts and trainers - and unlit for the whole of the performance, they could hardly have presented a more united and anonymous front. The back of the hall was a much better place from which to observe the stunning display of sonic and visual effects which unfolded in meticulously synchronised step with the heavily rhythmic soundtrack.
The duo have been touring, on and off, since last year, when We Are The Night became their fifth album in succession to top the UK chart. A new album, Brotherhood, described as "the definitive singles collection", is released Monday, September 1, and the Olympia set list was heavy on hits - although it is the Chemicals' policy never to reproduce a number exactly as you remember it.
As they kicked off with Galvanize, the arched interior of the building (a photograph of which features prominently on the cover artwork of the group's 1999 album, Surrender ) was lit up like an explosion in deep space. Against a starry backdrop, strip and strobe lighting crackled and flashed in all corners of the stage and along the sides of the vast room. Animated dancing figures and an eerie clown face were suspended in mid-air above the stage during Do It Again and Get Yourself High , followed by a kaleidoscopic display of geometrical shapes in Hey Boy Hey Girl .
The music might have been scientifically designed to stimulate the neurons. High-pitched klaxon noises, whirring helicopter blades, and deep sub-bass rumbles contributed to a continuous cycle of rising tension followed by a giddy rush of release. As lasers turned the room into matrix-like grids, band and crowd surfed the waves of electronic euphoria in perfect, dizzy unity.
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