Part of the light show at London's Olympia, August 30th 2008

This evening I made my fourth trip to London this year, this time to go up to see a concert.  It was a bit of an experiment really because it was to see the Chemical Brothers.  I have one of their albums and like it well enough, but I’m not a huge fan, and I had never been to a dance-type concert before. Also it was the first musical concert to take place in the main hall for about 10 years,so should be a bit of an event.

In fact I only went because an old work colleague from when I was at Waterloo was getting tickets, asked if I was interested, and I just thought “why not?”   I am trying to not say no to new experiences.

The first shock I had was meeting up in a pub opposite Victoria station and finding out that it wasn’t just us two: he had invited a couple of his friends – both females from our old HR department, and one of them was bringing a boyfriend.  The problem with this is that Jayne gets very jealous so I was already thinking about the delicate tightrope I would have to walk on my return home: if I mention that females were present she would start the third-degree, but if I don’t mention them immediately but do so later on she will think I am hiding something.  Really I should just put my foot down and say that I am perfectly capable of having female friends without shagging them.

Anyway, about the concert itself.  The doors opened at 6.  We got there at about 7:30ish and stepped into the main hall at Olympia to be greeted by a sparse crowd, a huge room filled with smoke, some lights and extremely loud electronic music.  We rightly assumed it was a DJ set and not the band itself – although with so much smoke there could have been an entire orchestra hiding up on the stage.  Bert said it reminded him of his time going to raves back in the day

It turned out that the Chemical Brothers were not going to be onstage until 9pm…  so glad we didn’t go in at 6 on the dot.  By the time 9 came around, the place had filled up a bit, and the band exploded onto the stage with a massive lightshow.

The Chemical Brothers towards the end of their set

It was all very impressive: lasers, a giant screen, strobes, smoke, lights all round the gallery.  The music was loud. Very loud.

The Chemical Brothers are renowned for their lightshows, and I can see why.  Combined with the pounding, repetitive music I can also see the appeal of getting lost in the whole experience.  I can also get an inkling of why people might take some mind-altering drugs to accompany it!  However that is one new experience I would have passed on even if the opportunity did present itself – one thing I do know is that 45 is not the age to start experimenting.

All this laser and big-screen technology is something we should seriously consider for our 2012 opening ceremony.  We may not be able to marshal huge numbers of regimented drummers and dancers like the Chinese can, but we do now how to put on a great light show – and unlike fireworks and dancers, the effect of lasers would only be enhanced by pouring rain.

Although I enjoyed the experience I felt that it was really lacking a human dimension.  Kraftwerk are supposed to have an image of being mechanical and impersonal but their show was warm and human compared to the Chemical Brothers who are basically just two blokes behind a huge stack of equipment who you can hardly see.  There is no between-song banter and they don’t sing: they just twiddle knobs.  The songs merge seamlessly into one another (either that or they just played a single 90-minute song) .

It is not easy to express the experience in mere words.  The best way to sum it up is to just say look at this short video clip I took, imagine more of the same, non-stop, for a couple of hours, and that’s a Chemical Brothers show!

I’ll probably get their new greatest hits CD (out this week) though.