Chemical Brothers (1)

Glastonbury Festival 2000

Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th June 2000
Worthy Farm, Pilton, nr Glastonbury, Somerset, England
£89 including booking fee and postage

Daily capacity: 80,000

Chemical Brothers (1)
Pyramid Stage
22:50 23rd June 2000

A huge crowd gathered for the Chems on the Friday night, many with great memories of their DJ set of Surrender in the Dance tent last year. There was a real buzz as the tightly packed crowd awaited the doyens of Big Beat to fire up their bank of synths. The first sound was the whining fuzz that led into Hey Girl Hey Boy and the crowd screamed "here we go" and off they went (those that had the space to). Accompanied by the brilliant visuals that have been used throughout their tour, the excellent Music/Response was followed by Block Rockin Beats. They ran through most of Surrender, Out of Control, the uplifting Sunshine Underground, dipping into the back catalogue for Leave home and finishing with their standard Private Psychedelic Reel.

Chemical Brothers
The Stage with the big screens each side - they're there somewhere... honest!

Overall the set went down well but failed to really thrill the audience. They should have tailored their touring set for an event such as Glastonbury, difficult as that may be. There were too many moments where the tracks drifted into lengthy and sometimes directionless electronic interludes, which work fine in a smaller venue in front of die hard fans, but these digressions let the crowd cool. Having lost momentum, they failed to build it up again for at least a final crescendo. Probably victims of over expectation and their inability to engage the crowd themselves from behind the huge bank of kit. They need to do more to justify the head billing at such an event, especially as they have clearly outgrown the likes of the dance tent.

review by: Pete Smith