A son-et-lumière spectacular: The Chemical Brothers at the O2 Arena reviewed

How does one account for the phenomenon that is the Chemical Brothers, a quarter of a century on from their first records, just getting bigger and bigger? Only now are they touring the arenas of the UK for the first time. They’re nominated for a Grammy. Their current album, No Geography, is a top-five hit. Wasn’t the 1990s dance-music explosion meant to have ended with, well, the 1990s? They’re not alone either: Underworld, too, are now playing arenas, and not just to people who want to shout the refrain to ‘Born Slippy’: ‘Lager! Lager! Lager! Lager!’

Perhaps there’s something in the fact that neither group was completely contained by dance music. A friend was telling me recently about seeing the Chems — then still called the Dust Brothers — DJing in the basement of the Albany pub in central London, at the famous Sunday Social nights. What they played — house and hip-hop, but also the Beatles, the Clash, the Specials — was utterly unlike the staple diet in most house clubs.