Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 17/09/08

Karl Hyde is 50-years-old. Fifty! Default ageism would suggest that he's far too old to be fronting an energetic dance act. Yet Hyde is not a man bound by the strictures of convention. Put simply, he's weird. Look at him, in his sequinned shirt, dancing like there's nobody watching. He's like one of those twitchy guys who, out of pity, is allowed to sit in the greasy spoon all day without ordering anything. As a frontman, though, Hyde is brilliant: you can't keep your eyes off him, whether your gaze be curious or bewildered.

The music's pretty special too, a point made obvious by tonight's opener, "Rez". A piece of inspired digital minimalism, "Rez" is like Aphex Twin's "Donkey Rhubarb": it sounds like something that will be played not just 20 but hundreds of years from now. When Hyde starts to sing, the track mutates into "Cowgirl", and everything distinctive about Underworld surges to the fore: vocals both urgent and robotic; lyrics both baffling and beguiling; and music both mellifluous and fierce.

Where most '90s dance acts have dated about as well as '70s comedians, Underworld's music is striking in its timelessness. Tonight, they follow "Cowgirl" with an unbroken sequence that seamlessly segues from a 1993 track ("Dark And Long") to tracks written with Darren Price following his recruitment in 2005. However, since recent Underworld material is more contemplative, it's deployed sparingly tonight. Only two tracks from latest outing "Oblivion With Bells" make a two-hour set that strives always to keep the dancefloor moving.

The pacing is masterful. After the pile-driving "Push Upstairs", a more ambient section is punctuated by a sudden whirlwind of breakbeats, before "Two Months Off" builds steadily to another tumultuous crescendo. "Rowla", meanwhile, builds a tension that only the inevitable arrival of "Born Slippy" can break. Ah yes: "Born Slippy". Ten years after this track was subjected to over-exposure on a scale that none could survive, it's possible to appreciate anew the perfection of its dynamic shifts and vocal, which Hyde is somehow able to recreate live. Even more amazingly, he seems to enjoy performing a track that must by now be showing up in his DNA. It likewise meets the approval of the ageing faithful, as do a menacing "King Of Snake" and downright brutal "Moaner".

It's somehow wholly fitting, if a little wilful, that the encore brings forth "Jumbo", a fluttery, profoundly melancholic song that's among Underworld's very best. It serves as a cool breeze after the scorching heat of "Moaner" and Hyde sings it with real passion, at one point delightedly acknowledging a woman dancing wildly on the balcony. The party must end, and Hyde's determined to see it out gracefully. Underworld too must end and their twilight will likewise be graceful. You feel it at every moment tonight: we're in safe hands here, hands not yet shaky with age.

by Niall O'Keeffe