Leftfield have just had some of their best gigs ever – but Neil Barnes reckons the Barrowland can top them.

The group are currently touring classic debut album Leftism in full, 22 years after it was released and changed dance music forever.

They come to Barrowland for a two night stint next week, a venue that is Neil’s favourite place on the planet to play.

“There is a responsibility on you when you play the Barras, because if people don’t like you then they’ll tell you,” he says.

“It’s my favourite venue to gig at in the world. Brixton Academy in London is now up there after the gigs we did there last week because they were so good they reminded me of the Barras, and that is really saying something. The Barras is just a total party atmosphere every time I’m there and people are so enthusiastic. I have a lot of friends there, people at the Sub Club, people at Slam, and it’s one of the most special environments in the world.

“There’s still a magic there. It feels great when you are onstage, and you have a connection with the crowd. They are only four, five feet away and the energy from the band is quickly with the audience and vice versa.”

The gigs will see Neil perform Leftism in its entirety. Neil and his then partner in crime Paul Daley released the record in 1995, mixing together dub, drum and bass and house music into one record. When the album arrived there were still doubts that dance music could work as a full album, and Leftism soon shattered any of those notions.

It is regularly hailed as one of the greatest albums in British music history, while the group’s furiously noisy shows added to their reputation. Now the album has been reissued, complete with a collection of bonus remixes.

“We wanted a rich tapestry of an album, because dance music in those days was a really exciting time and people were starting to experiment,” recalls Neil.

“The trance scene was around at the time, drum n’ bass was emerging and we were getting influenced by ambient music as well. We didn’t want just a progressive house sound, so we’d go back to something like Song of Life, and then take it down another direction. We’d take a banging track, then go ‘let’s do something that’s more of a jungle scene’ and that’s how we worked.”

Also appearing on the album was former Sex Pistol and PIL frontman John Lydon, who contributed vocals to one of Leftism’s best known tracks, Open Up. It preceded the album by over a year, reaching 13 in the charts in November 1993.

“I knew John through a friend, though not closely,” recalls Neil.

“He was very interested in techno and dance music, and I had the demo written before Paul had even joined Leftfield. When I was on Rhythm King (the record company he was on before Leftfield) I had the idea of working with John, but they thought it was a crazy idea.

“Then once Paul joined Leftfield I said to him I’d had the idea and he immediately got it. It was then just a matter of doing a demo and trying to get John in – I was fortunate that that I knew him already and managed to get him. His vocal was delivered in about six goes, because it was so complete.”

Neil is now alone at the helm of Leftfield, with Paul having departed the duo back in 2010. The band’s long-awaited third album, Alternative Light Source, was released in 2015, and Neil will return to looking at new material once the current Leftism jaunt is finished.

However British clubbing culture has also been under sustained pressure in recent years, with venues throughout the country forced to close for a variety of reasons, including, of course, Glasgow’s own Arches. It’s a topic that the otherwise upbeat Neil is concerned about.

“It’s an attack on the night time economy,” he says.

“It’s not being recognised as an important part of the economy and it’s a very narrowminded thing that too many local councils are doing. They have the idea that anyone who goes out late at night will take drugs.

“Thing is, a lot of clubs have the most fantastic security and are responsibly run businesses. That drives the music underground though – you can’t stop young people from wanting to go out, and people will find a way to do so.”

Leftfield, Barrowland, May 26/27, £30, 7pm

Jonathan Geddes