Chemical Brothers @ McCarren Pool in Brooklyn

Photos by Ian Meyer

I checked out one of the biggest names in live electronic performance at Brooklyn's spacious McCarren pool on Saturday. The Chemical Brothers have been at it for a long time playing to thousands of people for over ten years. The new album "We are the Night" is a step in the house direction for the kings of breakbeat electronica and it's also a foray into analog synth land which is something I am definitely feeling. Their first full length "Exit Planet Dust" (Junior Boys Own 1995) is truly a classic and probably the Chems best work. I discovered this one later in life but it still is a major influence on me. I have always dug their ability to keep the listener interested through constantly evolving sounds and their arrangements. The production is always top notch. Although most of Chemical Brothers albums have tracks that are pretty much useless to me, there's always a few gems on each LP. Seeing them perform live was long over due.
The visuals at this show were probably the most impressive part. They're projecting on a huge screen which looked like a net of small led's. Lots of geometric shapes were used, especially circles to highlight parts of the screen. Also lots of portraits of freaks mouthing the words to the tracks with lots of projections or make-up on their faces. The crowd was reacting to the visuals with cheers. Powerful stuff.
The music from the new album sounded great, although the pool is a tough space to fill. I would like to see the Chems in a smaller club environment. The crowd was filled with good people including local celebrities Joey Dollaz and Jack the Legend.
One thing I always find myself asking at these events is "Are they doing anything up there or are they faking the funk?" Crowds are always content when a band member, usually Ed in this case, stops tinkering (or fake-tinkering) with some synth knobs to wave to the crowd. Big cheers for that. It's always been whispered amongst the people who know anything about gear and performing that the Chemical Brothers and many of their parallel performers are just running a DAT or CD and pretending to play their gear. Maybe they'll throw a drum fill in from the MPC or really play a line here or there but who knows what's really going on right in front of an audience? When you get to that level, there's no room for error and electronic gear can be buggy. (That's why I leave my 909 at home. It has a mind of its own.) I would much rather see/hear a missed sequence or any fuck up while knowing that the beats are being created live right there than hear a studio recording while very respected individuals are turning knobs on a synth that isn't even connected. I guess the end result is what matters, and if the crowd is dancing, cheering, and partying to great music, then who cares if it's pre-recorded? Electronic musicians that actually play their gear, that's who.