Sandy Smith’s brass band transcription of Tubular Bells is an improbable triumph. He draws heavily on composer David Bedford’s 1970s orchestral arrangement, along with Mike Oldfield’s two recorded versions. Musically the work holds up very well. But the original 1973 LP sounds distinctly murky in places: this was a live performance in which every strand was audible.

In 1985, John Foxx released In Mysterious Ways: his fourth solo album since leaving Ultravox in 1979. In 1980, he had charted with “Underpass”, his first solo single. Subsequently, he charted a path where frosty, anomie-filled electropop gave way to the warmth of “Europe After the Rain” and the Beatles-inspired psychedelia of “Endlessly”. The 1983 album The Golden Section was his most straightforwardly poppy to date. Then, the patchy In Mysterious Ways and musical silence.

I'll be straight: I wasn't sure what to expect at this show, because I've never been a Björk fanatic as such. I loved – and saw live – The Sugarcubes as a teenager, I've raved to her Nineties Debut and Post era tracks, and I've enjoyed plenty more since, not least the intimacies of Vespertine [2001] and the wild expansiveness of Volta [2007].

The career of Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, better known to us as Vangelis, has been as wide-ranging as it has influential. From his beginnings as one-third of the almighty Aphrodite’s Child, veering from light, classy psychedelic pop to triumphant, thundering progressive rock, to his later incarnation as a synth soundtrack wizard capable of being both visionary (Blade Runner) and unashamedly populist (Chariots of Fire).

“The best and most confident debut since ‘Anarchy in the UK,’” said weekly music paper Sounds of the debut single by Ultravox! “Dangerous Rhythm” had been released in February 1977. “Cosmic reggae," declared Record Mirror. Melody Maker identified a “rare quality and haunting presence”. The NME said the song was a “reggae abstraction” and “mesmeric”. Ultravox! – the attention-grabbing exclamation mark was ditched in early 1978 – were off to a good start.

“Ooooh, it’s gorgeous!” exclaimed my wife-to-be as we arrived at what had been described as “an oasis in Hertfordshire.” They weren’t kidding, either. The site for the inaugural festival organised by Notting Hill Carnival stalwarts Sancho Panza couldn’t have been more different from West London if it tried. In place of terraced houses there were wall-to-wall trees, the only flyover was the sound of planes headed for Luton across an open sky.

Detroit techno music is important. Any student of the club music of the modern age knows this. The sound that fermented among the majority black population of the decaying industrial city in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as disco's last remnants fused with the avant-garde experiments of Europeans who were first getting their hands on synthesisers and drum machines, went on to change the world. It seeded the UK's rave explosion, jungle, drum'n'bass and all the electronic experiments that came after.

Honestly, you wait years for a lengthy project to come to fruition, then two turn up at once. However, while The Avalanches had to contend with people tapping their watches and sighing wearily, The Earlies’ John Mark Lapham had only his own clock to watch. The measured pace and unhurried approach are reflected in the languorous song spectres he presents here.

Dance music has, for millions of people, become synonymous with the very worst that the human race has to offer. Preening, vain, beach-body bumholes dancing like everyone’s watching, while keeping half an eye on their camera, making sure than the framing is right, no matter that they’ve got everything else wrong.

The weight of expectation can be a terrible thing to bear. When Since I Left You, The Avalanches’ patchwork party debut, was released in 2000, there was no sense of how long it had taken to make, just a collective intake of breath at the dense layers and intricate detail. Plundering anything and everything in their bid to create this delightful decoupage, it was the sheer scale of the band’s collective imagination that thrilled. How could any follow-up possibly compare?