Chemical Brothers

Glastonbury Festival, June 2000. The main stage is ablaze with heavenly light and thick tumbling smoke. Occasionally the fog is broken by flickering images of stained glass windows, religious imagery, things that seems so out of place in front of a hundred thousand weekend revellers in a field in Somerset. The sound coming out of the speakers is an ever-growing loop of celestial noise, at once poundingly heavy and utterly melodic. This being the last year that those inclined could navigate the fence for a sly tenner, the field is bursting with ever more spun out people, minds twisted by a day of glorious sunshine. The track being "The Private Psychedelic Reel", this is a signal that The Chemical Brothers live set is just coming to its close, melting down not fading away. As it snaps to the end, one hundred thousand people are suddenly let go, free to tumble away into the night to try to find something to do that will match the genius of what they just witnessed.