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Australian fans of dance music have really been spoilt of late.First there was the near-spiritual experience of the Daft Punktour. Then came the storming likes of LCD Soundsystem and Pnau atthe Big Day Out. Good Vibrations has just brought Kanye West totown while next month’s Playground Weekender will featureKruder & Dorfmeister.

But arguably the biggest name of all - reaching further acrossmultiple genres than even Daft Punk or West - belongs to theBritish duo that united indie kids, electronica heads and pop fansin both clubs and live arenas across the planet. Even if, when wespeak to one of the revered Chemical Brothers, Ed Simons, he’sreeling from having recently played, in his words, “a prettyshocking gig”. Really?

“It was OK,” he reconsiders, perhaps realising the purpose ofthis interview. “It was just … one of those one-in-a-millionChemical Brothers gigs that wasn’t completely astounding.”

You see, Simons and his fellow Brother, Tom Rowlands, have longbeen two of too few artists in live electronica who convincinglyrock out behind their banks of equipment while assaulting theiraudience’s senses with mind-blowing visuals and thunderousbeats.

“I mean, three guys hunched around a laptop can be good,” Simonssays, evidently a little embarrassed about some of his peers. “Itneeds a bit of a jump in imagination. But all live performance ishard to get right or make exciting.”

Are the Chemical Brothers ever tempted to just press “play” andpretend behind the decks?

“We don’t do that,” Simons says, deadly seriously.

“We always thought maybe we should show, like, a short film onthe screen before we come on, just explaining to people what’sgoing on onstage ’cause we still get that misconception. Peoplethat don’t play the guitar can watch someone playing the guitaronstage and kinda feel like they know what’s going on. Or they seesomeone hitting a drum.

“But it doesn’t really matter. Our shows are aimed at creatingan atmosphere in an environment that’s exciting to hear our music.It’s also about getting people out the house and having funtogether, y’know? That’s the important thing to me, rather thansome sort of massive appreciation of how well we’ve executed liveelectronic music.”

They’re obviously doing something right. Many of theironce-brilliant Brit-tronica peers from the ’90s have lately eitherlost it (Fatboy Slim), tried their hands at something bizarrelydifferent (Underworld) or completely vanished (Leftfield). TheChemical Brothers, on the other hand, have been as prolific andconsistent as your average rock band in the studio as well as live,releasing a strong, cohesive album roughly every couple ofyears.