söndag 31 Aug 2008, 7:23

Sat 30 Aug – The Chemical Brothers, Erol Alkan
Arrived about 30 minutes before start. Good queuing system so always moving. Tickets scanned instead of the stubs removed.
Massive arena with food and drink halls to the left. Amenities well signed too.
Some DJ doing his stuff - very good - to warm up the gathering masses. No chance of getting squeezed or feet and elbows tangled here, unless you were really up near the front I guess.
Found a good spot behind the "computer" desks - what the hell do they do anyway?!?
CB's on stage a short while later pumping out the tunes. Massive speakers vibrating the air along with very good visuals. At least the verbal audio was in sync with the visuals this time - unlike at Brixton earlier this year.
Here's a good idea: if they have visuals, why not pop up a tag of the track name. I'm sure traditional bands shout out the track name before they play it, just in case we're not sure, coz' some of them were re-mixed and merge into one another, etc.
If I'm honest it was a re-hash of Brixton - maybe a few new tracks thrown in, that gave us a moment to ponder what they were playing until Star Guitar (highlight of the night it seemed for most - well me anyway) kicked in!
Another criticism is that there was too much "white noise" between (and sometimes during) tracks, which frankly, is a waste of time, when they could be playing 2, 3 or even 4 extra tracks. Plus it is irritating after a while and bleeds the ears - I'll definitely be taking ear-defenders next time (well, plugs) - maybe I'm just getting old!
So, after 90 minutes or so, they gave us 10 minutes to wonder if there'd be an encore. I think most knew there would be, so the encore chanting never quite reached its peak. Then we were graced for another 20-30 minutes.
Over and out.