The Chemical Brothers

Sonnet and I see The Chemical Brothers, who play from 11PM Saturday at the Brixton Academy. Think big beat, electronic dance music. Think loud. Think lasers and ecstasy. Numbing - pounding - euphoria. Wow. The UK based band, a duo really, is Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons who work an enormous computer set in the middle of the stage. There are otherwise no instruments nor performers. The Chemical Brothers, along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and The Crystal Method, captured the 1990s rave spirit started in Detroit and exported famously to Ibiza and Europe. I recall a club in Almaty, Kazakstan, in 1997 where the music was similarly intense and young sweaty beautiful bodies deadened themselves to the world - somehow perfect for the location. Sonnet has the good sense to wear ear-plugs (middle age, must take care of ourselves) while afterwards I am deaf-tone from the performance and maintain a ringing 24 hours on. The music's vibrations, felt in the chest, stand my arm hairs on end. The audience is enraptured while visual images cross the gigantic digital screen: marching men with guns, a sad clown intoning "everybody get high," a squadron of bombers and so on. Sonnet and I agree that the only place a show like this could be had in the states is L.A. or Brooklyn.... perhaps Queens. It wakes me up from any sunlight deprived, early winter doldrums.