Since first coming together in 1989, The Chemical Brothers have done more than enough to earn their place in the Pantheon of Rave Legends. They may not have been there at the birth of Acid House, but six number one albums, 13 top 20 singles and six Grammy awards is nothing to be sniffed at – especially for a couple of nerdy blokes who basically push buttons on boxes of electronic gadgets.

Early on in this arena gig by New Order, a youthful, enthusiastic voice could be heard to say gleefully, “They’re just so 80s!”. That statement was both accurate and yet also misleading, for as this near two-hour performance showcased New Order’s music is both of that decade and yet above it. 

The Chemical Brothers are unstoppable. Their live shows are a guaranteed monster good time, redolent of proper old-school rave-ups, but with visual tech from some freaky eye-boggling future. Their last album, 2019’s No Geography, was a total belter. Their latest, their tenth, is also a total belter. They do what they do. But they do it so bloody well.

Here’s one woman "of a certain age" who definitely isn’t invisible. But she’s in the middle of a media furore on which we’d rather not dwell. Sadly it might be the very thing that gets her the publicity she surely deserves. Remember when there was no such things as bad publicity? Vastly under-appreciated, she is a creative powerhouse. Innovative, daring and most of all unpredictable.

We Out Here Festival, now in its fifth year (and fourth edition, as 2020 was of course cancelled for Covid), has become an institution. Curated by jazz-centric veteran DJ Gilles Peterson and actualised by Noah Ball – best known for his role in creating Outlook Festival in Croatia which has served as UK bass music’s metting point in the sun since 2008 – it joins the dots culturally through generations of music both strange and hedonistic and attracts a faithful crowd that reflects that.

Introducing the fifth number in this evening’s set, Erin Birgy speaks to the audience for the first time. “This is our last song, thank you,” she says. Thoughts of early Jesus and Mary Chain shows instantly surface. Is this going to be a 20-minute wonder? A five-song digest of where Birgy – who records and writes as Mega Bog – is now, playing her first UK dates since the release of her seventh album The End of Everything? Is it the end of the show?

I first saw Erol Josue on stage in Essaouria, Morocco, during the Gnawa Festival of 2011, when he fronted Jazz-Racine Haiti. The Haitian-born voudou priest turned R&B singer struck me as one of the most flamboyant frontmen ever to hit a stage.

For someone predominantly poised at her kit, the mononymous music producer’s return is surprisingly devoid of live drums. Daughter of Leftfield cofounder Neil Barnes, Georgia has made a name for herself as the drummer for artists such as Kwes and Kae Tempest. Her 2019 release Seeking Thrills was “a hymn to British hedonism” with a hefty slice of Robyn-esque pop panache. Last year saw Georgia embrace these stadium-sized singalongs as tour support for LA sister trio Haim.

The broken beat movement, centred on West London around the turn of the millennium, wasn’t super press friendly. Its complex rhythms were eclipsed in the populism stakes by its close cousin UK garage, and serious commentators didn’t really know what to do with a broadly working class, multicultural scene that was aspirational and privileged virtuosic production and musicianship. Indeed there was a distinct inverted snobbery in the refusal refusal to treat it with the respect afforded other electronic music which fit into a scholarly vs “street” dichotomy.

There are whole books to be written – indeed, hopefully being written – on how hip hop has interacted with dance music culture in North America over the past decade plus. From the overblown mania of rap megastars jumping on David Guetta tracks in the heat of the EDM explosion at the start of the 2010s, to the far more sophisticated fusions done brilliantly by Beyoncé and slightly less so by Drake on big albums last year, it’s created some of the most ubiquitous sounds globally.