There’s something ironic or at least amusing about a 20000 strong packed stadium shrouding two men on laptops. Still—1990s dance patriarchs The Chemical Brothers  managed to please their legions of enthusiastic fans, despite  an understated stage presence and performance physicality as dynamic as a sock puppet show.

Back up dancers?  An organic drummer? Guitarist? Pole dancer? Hooters worker carrying a scoreboard sign? Anything, anything…paallleasse to at least remind me why I’m not seeing this at home on a computer.

Thankfully, The Hollywood Bowl is the consummate iconic setting that is majestic enough to negate not so gripping onstage antics. This, combined with multiple lasers and the innovative and artistic backdrop projections created by now  TV producer/directors Marcus Lyall and Adam Smith, helped turn things around.

With latter day electronica (such as that demonstrated by Chromeo) seeing a melding of organic convention (they move and have a few backing musicians), The Chem’s hark from an era when doodling in an onstage bunker was tolerable. Pre- mainstreaming of internet and cross-genre homogenization, doodling with gadgets was innovative, enigmatic and kinda subversive—though since they achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s  this needs a little updating.

OK, solid moments? 99’s “Under the Influence” and “Out of Control,” “Don’t Think,” and “Escape Velocity,” and genius silhouette visuals of a twee young girl confronting various symbols of chaos, businessman, burley threatening guy, etc. Not so solid? No star guests (Liam Gallagher, Richard Ashcroft, Tim Burgess), and no encore.

There has been speculation over how much of The Chemical Brothers live gigs are pre-recorded, though they insist (on their official website FAQ) that they have a mere outline of track order and the rest is mixed live. This would seem to be confirmed by concertgoers who have seen gigs on consecutive nights and have posted notable differences between the sets played. So, at least for your ticket investment, you can seek comfort in that they were in fact playing keyboard riffs rather than launching pre-programmed songs with a single click.

—Craig Stephens