The previous weekend the Prodigy were here, playing gigs so good that they led some to suggest that the dance scene was far from dead. They were right, as it happens, but it wasn’t the Prodigy that proved it, it was the arrival in Brixton of the group’s mid-Nineties rivals the Chemical Brothers.

Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands waited until after pub closing time to sneak on to a stage so crammed with computers, keyboards and flashing red lights that it looked as if Nasa might claim it back. How much was for show it was hard to say, but for an intricate opener that borrowed the vocal samples from Block Rockin’ Beats and Hey Boy Hey Girl, they huddled together at the same desk, crouched so low that only the front few rows could see their heads bobbing above drifting dry ice.

The party started soon afterwards, when curtains drew back to expose an enormous video screen on which fast-moving black and white graphics had an hypnotic effect, and the Chemicals segued seamlessly into Galvanise, a single from the start of this year that sent their latest album, Push the Button, to the top of the UK charts and just earned the band a Grammy nomination. With its Arabic strings and rap by Q-Tip, Galvanise took the band away from their signature big-beat sound and, alongside other current songs such as Hold Tight, London and a superb Surface to Air, sent the crowd into as much of a frenzy as did snippets of classic tracks worked into a non-stop mix.

The only disappointment was that the rumoured appearance of the Magic Numbers as guest vocalists on Close Your Eyes didn’t happen.

The Chemical Brothers made up for it though when Bernard Sumner came on to sing Out of Control and even brought along his guitar. Yet he couldn’t compete with the Chemicals’ thundering beats or the spellbinding control they had over the crowd.

Backed by graphics that got better as the night wore on, the duo even managed to sidestep the one problem that continues to haunt them — their image. Their only acknowledgement of the audience was Rowlands’s occasional trips to the front of the stage to wave his arms in the air, but it didn’t matter that, after a decade of success, the duo remain faceless DJs. Two hours passed like 20 minutes; they have never sounded better.

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