The Chemical Brothers review – mesmerizing barrage of thunder and lighting. -5 stars

 The Chemical Brothers review – mesmerizing barrage of thunder and lighting.

Editor Stephen Hill  28th October 2023

The Chemical Brothers return to Manchester AO Arena last night to a sell-out crowd, for a dance act to sell out Manchester Arena - is know rare feat indeed - you've got to be doing something right.

In fact, other than summer festivals and Ibiza residencies, there isn’t much scope to see some of the biggest artists of the genre perform live anymore

Band members Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons are indistinct within a looming ring of keyboards, drum machines, laptops and mixers. It isn’t clear, through darkness and dry ice, what precisely they are doing to conjure the mesmeric thunder of a Chemical Brothers live show. 

But they are busy as druids in a stone circle, working magic among the machines.  Nothing in this two-hour performance suggests the duo – now in their early 50s – are trading on past glories. 

Yes, the bassline of Block Rockin’ Beats is cheered like a returning hero, but the highlights actually come with less familiar songs, less straightforward moods. Wide Open is equal parts euphoric and elegiac. Goodbye is acid gospel in which bass pounds the chest – EDM as CPR – while a sampled vocal makes the heart ache.

A Chemical Brothers gig is no simple presentation of music that otherwise exists independently, it’s a theatrical work in which those songs become fully realized – the same difference between listening to a ballet score and seeing The Rite of Spring. Show designers Adam Smith and Marcus Lyall are alchemical brothers, transmuting sound into spectacle. 

A gigantic LED screen plays films featuring a bestiary of unchancy characters and creatures. Often, the tone is unsettling, notably Feels Like I Am Dreaming, a techno frenzy further intensified by a folk-horrorish video starring Benedict Wong. 

Highlights of the visual element include the dancing man throughout Galavanize, and the all-out lights, lasers and visual effects during Block rockin beats that makes you scream "Lads this is unreal!"  What I did find rather  wonderful was the amount of new material played as opposed to the more nostalgic tracks.

The choice of songs didn't seem to matter as each is received with more enthusiasm than the last, but stand-outs are MAH and Got to Keep On from the new album, which go down an absolute treat.  Hey Boy, Hey Girl is played in the middle of the set and is welcomed by so much noise you can barely hear the intro, only by a stick man face visual singing the classic hook do you know what’s happening. The drop triggers an insane burst of adrenaline - the whole arena was alive.

The band ended the show with a mash up of C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L, Leave Home and Song to the Siren is a stroke of genius, three absolute bangers.  By this point the crowd is euphoric. None of us could have asked for a better show, a better set of songs, a better focus for your eyes on the stage.  

And then they play Block Rockin Beats - that intro is so good, it's overwhelming.  Strangers high five, friends hug, people jump about six feet into the air, a man in front steps aside to let me have a go at hitting the balloons bouncing around - the dancing is continuous and joyous.  The Chemical Brothers gave a blisteringly incredible, mind-blowing  flawless show, after 20 years in the business their is no sign of them slowing down.