REVIEW: The Chemical Brothers At Vector Arena

Tom (blonde hair) and Ed (brown hair) have been layering sounds and beats for an incredible 11 years, in which time they have released seven studio albums. So they have a lot of material to cover at the Vector arena in Auckland last night.

Dedee was really glad to see all of Zane Lowe’s DJ set. He mentioned how good it was to be home. We were lucky to have him I reckon. He did an excellent job of amping up the crowd, using his infectious energy to keep us going from start to finish. His set was all killer, no filler, a relentless and impressive ride. It was a super-clubby high octane set with a bit of Magnetic Man and many other crowd pleasing tunes. He ended with a dedication to Christchurch and a quick spin of Scribe’s ‘Not Many’.

I was told The Chemical Brothers would be on at 9.10pm which seems a very specific time slot. So I made a point of checking my watch. At 9.12 they start teasing out the atmosphere with a vocal loop from Let Forever Be. Blue searchlights and dry ice fill the arena. They arrive on stage just a few minutes later to rapturous applause. They then proceed to keep us on our collectively massive high, their light show matching the intensity of their mind blowing tracks. It’s a sensory overload of lights, beats, and pure hedonism.

Dave got to the Vector just as the Chemical Brothers were starting. They started the set with Galvanise and then played Do It Again, Get Yourself High followed by an incredibly high energy performances of Horse Power, one of the tracks taken from their most recent album Further. There was an fantastic three dimensional, CGI horse galloping on the massive screen at the back of the stage during Horse Power. The graphics at every Chemical Brothers show I've been to have always been different and always been truly captivating, and I must have seen the Chemical Brothers about ten times now.

I will put the full set list at the bottom of this review. I must have been the only person taking notes during this show! My highlight of the show was just at the end of the set before the encore. They played my old favourite big beat anthems Leave Home and Block Rockin’ Beats and they sounded amazing. Dedee's major highs of the evening was Saturate into Believe and also Star Guitar.

They played a lot of their vocal heavy tracks like Hey Boy Hey Girl, Swoon, Believe in full but only played snippets of vocals from their tracks Out Of Control, Setting Sun and Golden Path. I found this kind of frustrating. They must not have been able to squeeze all of the vocals samples into their samplers because they had plenty of time on stage. There were a few moments when Tom and Ed looked like they were having far too much fun tweaking knobs and making strange sounds between Swoon and Star Guitar, at the end of Believe, at at the end of Block Rockin’ Beats before they walked off stage.

For the encore, The Chemical Brothers eased us back in gently with one of my favourite tracks Surface To Air, taken from their album Push The Button. They played a very interesting version of Hoops and ended with their epic song The Private Psychedelic Reel. Every time I have seen The Chemical Brothers live, they have ended with this song but this time it was different. This time it was messed up. It sounded like they were triggering every sound simultaneously for about five minutes. Perhaps they have played it so many times over the years that now they just have fun with it. It grew on me, I found it pretty funny.

It’s hard to sum up such an epic night into suitable words, but let’s just say they were completely unstoppable. Amazing.

Having now seen them at indoor and outdoor venues, both Dave and Dedee agree that seeing them at an indoor venue captures their intensity a bit more, maybe because there’s more control over the sound, the light show and the lasers look more effective.

The Chemical Brothers took us to dizzying heights with their mind bending combinations of sound and light, and left us there buzzing after a very very decent two-hour set. More pleeease.

Set List
Galvanize
Do It Again
Get Yourself High
Horse Power
Chemical Beats
Swoon
Star Guitar
Three Little Birdies Down Beats
Hey Boy Hey Girl
Don't Think
Out Of Control
Setting Sun
It Doesn't Matter
Saturate
Believe
Golden Path
You Are All My Children Now
Leave Home
Block Rockin’ Beats

Encore
Surface To Air
Hoops
The Private Psychedelic Reel

Review by David Apple & Dedee W