Hallelujah, brothers! Mercifully, the rain (which has intermittently fallen in bucket-loads throughout the day) has held off, and so the scene is perfectly set for peerless US noiseniks Sonic Youth to come along and do their alternately corrosive and blissfully melodic garage rock thang.
Opening with one of their patented blizzards of skull-shattering white noise, the Youth deliver a mesmerising set of classic back catalogue material and bang-up-to-date tunes from last year’s superlative Sonic Nurse.
The show really catches fire a few tunes in with another blast of epic guitar distortion, during which Thurston rams his guitar against his amp, plays it with his teeth, Hendrix-style, and rubs it against the steel rigging, before finally – and climactically – swinging the instrument down from the stage via the lead.
When it becomes disconnected, he leaps down to retrieve it, only to be mobbed by the front row.
Wriggling free, he climbs – with some considerable effort ­– back onstage, manages to avoid being decapitated by a flying sun-visor, and straps on the guitar just in time to kick into the glorious, otherworldly strains of ‘Unmade Bed’. Result!
Other highlights include ‘Schizophrenia’ (which sees bassist Kim Gordon – looking as sexy today as she did 20 years ago – twirl hypnotically centre stage during the bewitching denouement), ‘Mote’ (not even Lee Ranaldo’s malfunctioning mic affects its surging, proto-Interpol power) and an apocalyptically heavy ‘Drunken Butterfly’.
With the audience now suitably psyched, The Chemical Brothers kick off proceedings with a thumping take on ‘Hey Boy, Hey Girl’, sparking off a near riot in the process.
Although the Chems’ music is probably best experienced in a smaller indoor venue, it scarcely matters over the next 40 minutes, as they skip masterfully through a quasi greatest hits-set.
Scintillating takes on ‘Block Rocking Beats’ and ‘Leave Home’ are irresistible, although (perhaps surprisingly) it’s recent single ‘Galvanise’ that elicits the biggest response, with the foreboding, animated military visuals hinting at the more explicitly political edge that has found its way into the Brothers’ music in recent times.
Crowd-pleasing duties now complete, they move into far darker territory, with the rest of the performance devoted exclusively to uncompromisingly dark and aggressive techno.
The music is electrifying and the visuals frequently mindblowing (speeded-up tracks through eerie graveyards and a sinister, John Wayne Gacy-esque clown), although there’s certainly no danger of any this featuring on the next instalment of Now That’s What I Call Music.
Then, after a ridiculously short running time (80 minutes!), it ends abruptly, with the PA announcer having a difficult time being heard among the widespread booing and derisory jeers from the disappointed crowd.
So, no encore and no ‘Setting Sun’, ‘Let Forever Be’ or ‘Private Psychedelic Reel’. Instead, we’re left to reflect on a strangely schismatic set of pulsating anthems and nightmarish electro.
Not – as dear old Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza might articulate it – that there’s anything wrong with that, you understand.