Anyone from here going? This goes for lurkers, too. Where's the excitement? The love? The thrills, pills, bellyaches and all of that?

they are playing two shows at the same venue, they are clearly recieving the NZ love, but where is the afformentioned (as mentioned above) NZ love on this forum???!?!?!

What do you mean two shows? There's only one...

I'll be there... see you in the front row? ;)

oh, my mistake.

as for will i be there, no... i live in aus, but if i had another 1000 dollars...

i just checked their myspace and it says they are playing on the 28th and 29th? just a heads up, cause if its true, double the show for you

Yeah, true that, but there's no way that they'll be playing a set in Auckland on the 29th and then be in Brisbane, 3000km+ away the next day playing another one. It's a mistake, there's no mention of two shows here, the one sold out quickly...

I wish tho'.... ;)

aw, lame.

Yeah, but to be fair, we can't really complain - seeing The Chemical Brothers in New Zealand 4 times in just a fraction over 8 years is definitely a really good effort....

Most bands lose money by traveling this far, simply because of logistics, and NZ is such a small market, despite being passionate about music.

So yeah. 2 shows would have been great, but even 1 is amazing!

XPNDR you are so understanding. :) It would've been neat to have a leap year show, but oh well. Less than a week and you'll be at the show having an amazing time.

I'm going, weeeee! How exciting, I fly up to Auckland from Christchurch on Thursday. It's been a long wait but it's so close now...

Thanks so much for coming over here :)

So uh.. Where's the after party at eh? *nudge nudge wink wink* I won't tell anyone.. :P

hehe, well we've been let down by many other bands that were supposed to come to our shores, so I guess you tend to grow an ability to shrug disappointment, and appreciate everything...

Yeah a Feb 29th show would have been cool.

Only 2 days and 8-ish hours to go now... Exciting!

Thanks Whirly!

Doh, sorry about that.

As I said on one of the local forums...

Tonight, WE are the Night

:mrgreen:

You must be watching the clock tick by, those minutes dripping by ever so slowly! The wait is nearly over. I hope you have a great time at the show tonight!!

Thanks Whirly... 3 and a half hours till we get to the venue... 6 hours till the actual main set... I'm oozing with excitement, it's even better, as this time around, I'm taking a bunch of Chemical live virgins along for conversion... Yesss. :D

Expect a brief review, and hopefully a setlist (usually, my brain hasn't failed me)... some time tomorrow... :D

Actually this show didnt sell out I just bought tickets the other day. Unless of course you mean standing room which was sold out early at some point. Now having a seat isnt great, but since I'm here on holiday, at least I get to go.

I just wonder if the show will top Daft Punk's stage show last year...

I'm absolutely munted.... can't hear shit... have lost all motor skills.... and I'm meant to be a chemicals live veteran! ;)

I'll post up a review + setlist later today...

Setlist (review coming later)

No Path To Follow

---

Galvanize

Burst Generator

Do It Again / The Big Jump / Get Yourself High

Hey Boy Hey Girl

All Rights Reversed

Out of Control / Don't Fight It, Feel It / The Animal Song

Temptation / Star Guitar

Surface To Air

Under The Influence / It Doesn't Matter

Saturate

Believe

We Are The Night

Nude Night

The Golden Path / Elektrobank Beats

Chemical Beats

---

Leave Home

Block Rockin' Beats

Das Spiegel

The Sunshine Underground

:mrgreen: Niiiiiiice!! Thanks for posting. You got the Das Spiegel treatment! It's great to hear you're wrecked after a good night out and I can't wait for the review... once you've recovered of course.

Here's my front row experience:

It's difficult to write a review for a Chemical Brothers gig, especially when this is the fourth time in a row you've seen them live. It's also difficult to choose the angle - Do you cater for the hardcore fans, who are hungry for every detail, or to new converts, who want to know the names of that cool song between the ones they recognized. I'll try and aim for the middle somewhere.

Performance-wise, these guys seem to take it up a notch on each new tour. Anyone with the illusion that electronic music "can't be performed live", "has no melody or emotion", would be forced eat Bart Simpson's shorts... Their performance was a testament to the fact that good music has no boundaries, and concerts aren't just about playing out your most popular songs exactly as they sound on the CD. Believe it or not, it does get more exciting than that.

When I see a band live, I want to be entertained, not watch a soul-less action replay. There were lots of smart little improvisations, such as playing elements of three different songs at once, as well as those massive build-ups, backed with some LFO abuse of high-frequencies, before the unleashing of an uncompromising wall of bass, stabs, melodies and breaks. Quite simply, you could not be ignorant of "the rush" that happens at a gig like this, where the sonic onslaught simply fuels the adrenalin rise.

It's good to see them end with epic "journey" song like "The Sunshine Underground"... and of course the mandatory "Love Is All" sign.

Visually? My personal feeling is that visuals can sometimes be overrated - while they certainly weren't the most mind-blowing I've ever seen (bar the "paintball effect" during "Saturate"), it wasn't over-the-top, didn't detract from the music, but on the flip-side there were no unimaginative shapes and swirls from some Winamp visualiser. Some of old visuals still live today, such as the infamous evil robots.

It wouldn't be a proper review if I didn't mention Minuit, the local live breakbeat outfit who supported The Chemical Brothers: Nice little tight set, proper little portable rock-band, I'm sure Tom and Ed will be telling everyone back home in the UK about these guys.

In summary, I'm not going to bluntly say that it was the greatest ever gig or any other life-changing crap. Great gig, great performance, full stop. If you've never seen a band like this perform live, go and see it once in your life.

My only personal disappointments/gripes are:

- Kids on acid: You're annoying, fuck off, no one wants you at a real concert.

- Kids pushing and shoving like a bunch of retarded and uncivilized apes: You're annoying, fuck off, no one wants you at a real concert.

- Vector Arena was chosen as a venue - it is not world famous for its acoustics.

- Surely a local DJ was more deserving of support other than James Holroyd? Timmy Schumacher? Greg Churchill? Antiform DJ set? We have more than enough talent here...

- "All Rights Reversed" didn't work live as well as I was expecting it to

- The following songs have been dropped out of the set - some are simply old classics, some used to be great live favourites, and some unleashed an incredibly sinister side of The Chemical Brothers at a gig:

- Song to the Siren

- Setting Sun

- Music: Reponse

- Electronic Battle Weapon 6 (Hoops Remix)

- Electronic Battle Weapon 7 (Acid Children) (though a teaser was played before "Chemical Beats")

Big shout-out to the kids who came to hear "The Salmon Dance" and effectively wasted $100. I hope they at least discovered something new... ;)

Cool beans, thanks for the review and insight to the gig events XPNDR. :D Kids and hairless apes aside I'm glad you had a good, rushy time at the show and got to go on the epic Sunshine Undergound journey. Nice props you gave to the support act, too!

Hey - you wrote the first review of this leg of the tour!