Underworld live in London: “Born Slippy” veterans deliver a knockout
Underworld don’t tend to deal in nostalgia but they seem to have made an exception for this run of special anniversary shows celebrating the 30th birthday of “Born Slippy Nuxx” at a venue that’s always been close to their heart.
Underworld don’t tend to deal in nostalgia but they seem to have made an exception for this run of special anniversary shows celebrating the 30th birthday of “Born Slippy Nuxx” at a venue that’s always been close to their heart.
Their show here at the end of March 1996 – riding high on the success of their unruly crossover album Second Toughest In The Infants – might have been the moment they realised “Born Slippy’ was no longer their song but had passed into the public consciousness, its rippling chords and golden glow opening a portal if not to a different dimension then at least manifesting a way out of Britpop.
Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting had just come out with Underworld’s “Born Slippy” and “Dark And Long” scoring vivid passages, but it was Karl Hyde’s Dada-ish delivery of “lager lager lager” and “mega mega white thing” that would turn “Born Slippy” into a Cool Britannia anthem belted out at the Euros in that – sigh – glorious summer of ’96.
Their history with the building goes deep. In 2008, Underworld released a live album from Brixton Academy, recorded on Halloween; and by chance, on Halloween last year, Hyde’s daughter Tyler also played the Academy with her band Black Country, New Road. So tonight when the huge letterbox screen announces “From Romford” and then “To Brixton” during the clattering “Dark Train”, there’s a sense that Underworld are coming home and the audience – a mix of stocky seasoned ravers, parents and curious teens – roars approvingly.
Many lured here on this cold and rainy midweek evening might have expected a greatest hits set – that’s what this show appeared to promise – and in a way Underworld do deliver this; it’s more the case that Hyde and Rick Smith’s constant retooling of their catalogue means it takes a little longer to diagnose “Juanita” or “Two Months Off” underneath all the doof.
And the doof is pretty relentless: from the mangled Moroder groove of opener “Jumbo” into a pummelling “Techno Shinkansen”, a cut from last year’s Strawberry Hotel album, through to a thumping “King Of Snake”, Underworld’s natural impulse to is prioritise dancefloor effectiveness. This they achieve with a complementary light show that is out of this world, as murmurations of colour swirl around gigantic LED meshes on the ceiling and backdrop and grids of lasers strafe the crowd.
During “King Of Snake”, bright green motes hang in the air like digital dust. It’s certainly a distraction from watching Hyde and Smith go about their business, this odd couple in partnership for over 40 years – Freur’s “Doot-Doot” came out in 1983 – still challenging each other. Hyde, avuncularly Doctor Who-ish, is 69 in May yet the way he glides and shimmies around the stage could pass for a third of that. Smith, 65, operates the controls like someone looking for his glasses down the back of a sofa. Every so often Hyde puts his arm around Smith.
Age is just a number, of course, and though the show is a two-parter with a cup of tea-friendly 30-minute intermission after the first hour, it’s worth noting that Underworld are very much a hip proposition these days. Gen Z pop star PinkPantheress repurposed “Dark & Long”’s “Dark Train Mix” for her recent hit “Illegal”, and tonight Underworld insert their take-no-prisoners panel-beater remix of “alleswirdgut” by Berlin goth-techno duo Brutalismo 3000 between “STAR” and “Push Upstairs”.
he second half builds to a mind-scrambling passage in which the likes of “Pearls Girl (Tin There)” and “Moaner” are whizzed into four-four oblivion, before the final celestial embrace of “Born Slippy” – or “Nuxx” to give it its proper title (they actually play the original 1995 version of “Born Slippy” earlier in the set). Confetti explodes into the air as the crowd gets what it came for. No “Rez” for the wicked, sadly.
Underworld, Brixton Academy, London, February 5, 2026:
Jumbo Techno Shinkansen Confusion the Waitress Cherry Pie Two Months Off Juanita 2022 King of Snake Kittens
Born Slippy Pearl’s Girl Dark & Long (Dark Train) Cowgirl S T A R alleswirdgut (Underworld Remix) Push Upstairs and the colour red Border Country Arpeggio12 Pearl’s Girl (Tin There) Moaner Born Slippy .NUXX
