Underworld perform life long memory concert ‘On The Beach’ in Brighton

UNDERWORLD – BRIGHTON BEACH 20.7.24 

Rick Smith and Karl Hyde of Underworld cemented their place in the ’90s underground techno scene and the group’s definitive breakthrough came in 1996 when their timeless anthem ‘Born Slippy’ became the soundtrack of a generation after it was featured in the film ‘Trainspotting’. The author of which, Irvine Welsh, is playing a DJ set tonight in Brighton along with the legendary Arthur Baker – Read our review HERE. The success of that single catapulted the band from the underground into the heart of the mainstream. The following two decades has seen them build on that success while never compromising and yet still managing to sell millions of albums. Electronic innovators Underworld have performed countless sold-out shows, headlined the world’s biggest festivals including Coachella, Glastonbury and Summer Sonic, and played underground techno clubs and warehouses. They have also successfully provided scores to productions by Academy Award winning directors Anthony Minghella and Danny Boyle, plus they have exhibited in galleries, and supplied the sound-tracking for the Opening Ceremony to the London 2012 Olympic Games. 

Thus far they have dropped ten studio albums, these being: ‘Underneath the Radar’ (1988), ‘Change The Weather’ (1989), ‘Dubnobasswithmyheadman’ (1994), ‘Second Toughest In The Infants’ (1996), ‘Beaucoup Fish’ (1999), ‘A Hundred Days Off’ (2002), ‘Oblivion With Bells’ (2007), ‘Barking’ (2010), the Grammy nominated ‘Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future’ (2016) and ‘Drift Series 1’ (2019). The last few months have seen Underworld share new music through the release of their hypnotic 2023 ‘Denver Luna’ and ‘And The Colour Red’ singles.

Since their formation in 1987, Underworld to my knowledge, have only performed live in Brighton on a mere four previous occasions, these dates being at the Zap Club on 9th February 1994, the ‘Essential Festival’ in Stanmer Park on 25th May 1996, the ‘Brighton City Festival’ at the Brighton Centre on 24th October 2008, and Brighton Dome on 7th March 2015. Very annoyingly, I have somehow failed to see them live at any of the above dates, despite owning half of the above albums. Yes I know, what was I thinking! Things simply had to change and so tonight I’m astonishingly breaking my Underworld duck….thank God! Underworld tonight are headlining ‘On The Beach’ courtesy of JOY, Concorde 2 and Louder.

Today’s event is a long one that runs from 1pm to 10:30pm at night, but Underworld take to the specially built immense stage right on Brighton Beach four minutes earlier than they are scheduled to, and so the intro tape kicks in at 9:11pm with ‘Moon In Water’ from their 2010 ‘Barking’ album. The vast crowd is seriously up for this tonight! I enquired during that day from someone in authority as to how many folk there are here, and they thought 8,800, but it honestly feels like much more than that to me! I have to say that I was seriously impressed with the sheer diversity of today’s punters, from groups of shirtless young lads, beautiful ladies in sparkly dresses, middle aged men, and even hippy rave types, as well as some people in the cordoned off disability section and even one with some form of breathing apparatus! This is a classic case of the joys of live music bringing people together in pure happiness! 

As you would expect Karl Hyde (dressed in black) is the main focal point of the act as he delivers the vocals when required and struts around the stage and even at times climbs upon a raised platform behind his colleague Rick Smith (sporting a blue cap) who is relatively static behind the electronic equipment. There are giant screens either side of the stage, which have live camera feeds beamed onto them throughout the concert, with some using multi-layer effects. We occasionally get to see what electronic knobs Rick is adjusting in order to create the sounds, and there is labelling at the foot of the sampling until for him to go by, with words such as “Bass, Clap + Trap, Tek Loop, DX, A+B Riff, End Riff, Osca, and Rez”. It’s absorbing stuff indeed.

The performance kicks off in earnest with the wonderfully repeated lyric of “You bring light in”, which means it can only be the mega earworm that is their No.12 UK ‘Two Months Off’ single, which is one of my favourite Underworld tunes and which I found myself singing on the way out of the gig! Thankfully this live version was a similar length to the ‘A Hundred Days Off’ album version and came in at eight minutes plus, instead of the half length single version. The rear of the stage also had LED display lighting which added to the enjoyment of this tune, as well as all the others. 

Next up, it was the turn of the track that very first turned me onto Underworld back in 1994 (the year before ‘Born Slippy’ first dropped) when I purchased the absolute killer ‘URB Logic Trance 2’ compilation album! What a masterstroke that was, as not only did it contain ‘Rez’ from Underworld, but it also had several other massive hitters including The Orb ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’, Future Sound Of London ‘Papua New Guinea’, Orbital ‘Lush 3.1’, and Jam & Spoon ‘Stella (Jam & Spoon Mix)’. Thus when those swirling electronic notes started banging out of the massive soundsystem on Brighton Beach, I had my first goosebumps of their set and literally hundreds of phones were held aloft by the fans in order to grab some of the action. As this is an instrumental number, Karl positioned himself on the raised platform behind Rick. ‘Rez’ then segued straight into ‘Cowgirl’ just as it does on their 1999 ‘Everything Everything’ live album which is another epic piece of plastic. No wonder it got as high as No.22 in the UK album charts! As the repeated “Everything, everything, everything, everything, everything” sampled lyrics rang out, Karl had a hold of a mini handheld live camera which he held up close to his face and waved around to the music. The stage setup also benefited from three rows of six deep lights which were white for this tune. The music then segued back into ‘Rez’ for its closure.

It didn’t seem as though things could get any better and then the lads let loose with ‘Dark & Long (Dark Train)’ which was originally found on 1994’s ‘Dubnobasswithmyheadman’ album, but bettered and elongated on their epic ‘Underworld 1992–2002’ compilation album, which sees the tune expanded from seven and a half minutes to just under eleven minutes. Our senses are heightened further during this performance with the first inclusion of lazer beams, which blasted out blue and green streaks up into the summer night’s sky. The onstage lighting was orange and the word “Brighton” was briefly shown on the LED display to the rear of the duo along with “Always”. I noted a drone flying at the perimeter of the event and had my fingers crossed that it would be a Fatboy Slim repeat!.

The duo were now into the part of the show where they were dropping their latest material in the form of their two 2023 singles, the first of these being ‘And The Colour Red’ and the second being their last single, ‘Denver Luna’. For ‘And The Colour Red’ it will come as no surprise that the stage backdrop switched to solid bright red with the often repeated vocoder vocal title displayed on the screen. Musically, the electronic bass seriously hits out here in a booming way and it has the vibe of an acid house tune with hints of Kraftwerk ‘Pocket Calculator’ or Yellow Magic Orchestra blips and beeps. It’s the perfect tune to lose yourself in! Talking of which, one gentleman did actually enquire during the event prior to Underworld’s set as to whether we “required anything”. God knows how he got any illegal contraband in as our gear was thoroughly searched on the way into the event. ‘Denver Luna’, unlike many Underworld tunes, actually contains tons of words, 687 to be precise, so this was very much a case of all eyes on Karl for this track. The one line that stuck in my head was “Kiss the animal, the animal is on the telephone”. The booming bass kicked off the tune as though someone had turned the volume up, the beat doubled in speed halfway through and slowed down again, before setting off again. The lighting had switched from red to blue and purple. 

Next up were a couple of cuts from their ‘Beaucoup Fish’ album from back in 1999, the first of these being the drumming led ‘Kittens’, which wonderfully blasted out of the many crisp clear speakers as though Cozy Powell was in da house and getting carried away with ‘Dance With The Devil’. Then the beat gets added to with Gary Numan 1979 style synth sounds meets Monsoon’s ‘Ever So Lonely’ meets ‘Metropolis’ by Kraftwerk. They took the pounding sound right down and then back again and felt like prog rock on acid as the stage was awash with white light and copious amounts of dry ice. Although I own ‘Beaucoup Fish’, I had actually totally forgotten about this track, but now it’s certainly back with me and will be for some time to come! 

The second selection being offered from their ‘Beaucoup Fish’ album was the immense ‘King Of Snake’ which any fans of Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, Giorgio’s ‘From Here To Eternity’ and the work of Bobby Orlando will absolutely cream over! The lighting was (snake) green for this classic and my body decided to bop along so much like a plastic nodding dog at the back of a car on overdrive that I was unable to type any further notes on my phone throughout its duration. The beat was taken down and back up again during this number, which was very much a set highlight for me. F*ck yeah!!

Their penultimate selection was the ‘Pearl’s Girl (Tin There)’ which comes from their 1996 ‘Second Toughest In The Infants’ album. The lights for this switched from green to red and the slow swirling electronic sounds wafted across the beach and then gave way to a frantically fast banging beat which made it feel as though it was actually a Prodigy composition! It came with a false ending, just to catch folk out! 

For the first of only two times that Karl addressed the faithful was at this point where he stated “Look at you! We are most definitely on a Brighton Beach. It’s been a long time from when we played The Zap!” (9th February 1994). After which, THAT bouncing electronic note sounded out and my whole body tingled as the multicoloured lights beamed out at us and Karl sang….
Drive boy dive boy
Dirty numb angel boy
In the doorway boy
She was a lipstick boy
She was a beautiful boy
And tears boy
And all in your inner space boy
You had
hand girls boy
and steel boy
You had chemicals boy
I’ve grown so close to you
Boy and you just groan boy
She said come over come over
She smiled at you boy
Drive boy dive boy
Dirty numb angel boy
In the doorway boy
She was a lipstick boy
She was a beautiful boy
And tears boy
And all in your inner space boy
You had
hand girls boy
and steel boy
You had chemicals boy
I’ve grown so close to you…………

And this was even before that banging beat kicked in! The revelers’ arms were raised into the air, they were praying to their electronic Gods as they shouted “Lager lager lager lager”. Meanwhile Karl was back on the raised scaffolding area giving it some! This was an almost out of body experience for me, with no drugs involved, just Underworld and one pint! Music is my drug! And this (‘Born Slippy’) is one of the best songs written by anyone ever! F.A.C.T! 

This had been something very very special indeed, which hadn’t gone unnoticed by Karl who closed the show by saying “So much happiness, so much joy, give it to the world! You are beautiful. Thank you so much” just as a small drone hovered right in front of his face! It was 10:29pm and that was them finished! I was so moved by this whole experience that I didn’t know whether to cry or hug my best mate. Thankfully the latter won, just! 

Underworld:
Rick Smith – keyboards, synthesizers
Karl Hyde – vocals

Underworld setlist:
(Intro tape: ‘Moon In Water’) (from 2010 ‘Barking’ album)
‘Two Months Off’ (from 2002 ‘A Hundred Days Off’ album)
‘Rez’ / ‘Cowgirl’ (from 1999 ‘Everything, Everything’ live album)
‘Dark & Long (Dark Train)’ (from 1994 ‘Dubnobasswithmyheadman’ album)
‘And The Colour Red’ (a 2023 single)
‘Denver Luna’ (a 2023 single)
‘Kittens’ (from 1999 ‘Beaucoup Fish’ album)
‘King Of Snake’ (from 1999 ‘Beaucoup Fish’ album)
‘Pearl’s Girl (Tin There)’ (from 1996 ‘Second Toughest In The Infants’ album)
‘Born Slippy’ (a 1995 single)

linktr.ee/underworldlive

The Underworld set was the culmination of a whole day full of music and so it also hats off to the half dozen DJ’s that kept folk dancing throughout the whole experience. These were as follows: 

Eats Everything (Daniel Pearce, English DJ and record producer) 7:15pm – 8:45pm

Boys Noize (Alexander Ridha, German electronic music record producer, songwriter, and DJ) 6pm – 7:15pm 

Mall Grab (Jordon Alexander, Australian DJ and producer of house and techno music) 4:45pm – 6pm 

Erol Aklan (English DJ and producer of Turkish Cypriot descent) 3:30pm – 4:45pm 

Chloé Robinson (DJ and producer based in London) 2:15pm – 3:30pm 

Emerald (Emerald Rose Lewis, DJ, producer and Broadcaster) 1pm – 2:15pm