The Chemical Brothers, O2 Arena, review: A multisensory experience that melds techno and psychedelia

What a dizzying, disorientating, thrilling spectacle it is to witness The Chemical Brothers in full flight. The sheer onslaught of noise and audio-visual stimulus provided by the dance veterans is more akin to art installation than mere concert. At the final night of a UK arena tour, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, mostly unseeable behind a wall of technical equipment and dry ice as they twisted and distorted their melding of techno and psychedelia into piercing new forms, presented a breathless two-hour show that felt like the fulfilment of an idea – to see how wholly the senses can be overwhelmed before things become uncomfortable. It was pitched perfectly.

Large LED screens played home to an unending number of weird and wonderful characters – pixelated faces, athletic, pink futuristic stick-figures, moonwalking spotted men, and bizarre-looking non-people: everything from a deranged pallid man in a dog mask barking the intense mantra to “MAH” to, during “Eve of Destruction”, a strange Japanese-inspired superhero vignette.

Director Adam Smith has worked with the duo for more than a decade; his instinctive feel for the music turns techno into theatre; a feast for the eyes that is part fever dream, part bad trip nightmare. When, three songs in during “Get Yourself High”, we were overlooked by a giant unsettling blue-faced, Shrek-like Satan, it was a sign to just embrace the madness.

Now, somewhat incredibly, 30 years in the game, The Chemical Brothers have managed to weather any number of trends, fads and changes to club culture to become that rare thing: a heritage act (they are 50-something old-skoolers in a world of glitzy, moneyed superstar DJs) that actually remains in rude creative health.

Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, mostly unseeable behind a wall of equipment and dry ice (Photo: Kristy Sparow/Getty)

Many of the night’s most vital moments came from the last few years: propulsive new songs “No Reason” and “Live Again” are trademark Chems bangers; “Feels Like I’m Dreaming”, abetted by a gothic ritual scene featuring Benedict Wong, was an all-engulfing swell of noise. For “Goodbye”, the arena was pitted into complete darkness, extenuating the meditative gospel feel. The relative simplicity made the moment all the more powerful.

The show was full of hits, too – the Chems’ pop nous has always been somewhat underrated – delighting a crowd for whom the likes of “Hey Boy Hey Girl” and “Setting Sun” represent reminders of their youth.

But such tracks have transcended their eras, and the duo updated them in stirring ways: the drop to “Galvanize”, with Rowlands steeping away from his kit to rabble rouse, was lengthily spun out; by its climax, the adrenaline shot bassline to “Block Rockin’ Beats” was sped up beyond recognition.

If the encore’s more sedate pace was understandable given the preceding 90 minutes – “No Geography” provided the night’s most emotive instant – then “The Private Psychedelic Reel” was still a euphoric finale, a clattering stop-start, sitar-led clarion call that whirled relentlessly. After two hours of the most intense multisensory experience, it was the most suitable of endings.