Ominously, an ICA steward offers free ear plugs on the way in and shortly after 8pm the performers begin their sonic assault. Sparks fly as one performer takes a circular saw to a metal railing while wood chips spatter the stage as another viciously attacks a tree trunk. The cacophony intensifies as a third throws bricks into cement mixers while the rest manically handle pneumatic drills. The room fills with acrid smoke and the smell of burnt rubber. After twenty-five minutes, the performers stop, prompting angry protest in the audience. Of course, we all know it’s staged, but as a furious mob starts tearing pieces of MDF off the stage, there is a thrill of excitement as it looks like some members of the audience may have got carried away and joined the stooges. One ICA steward looks slightly worried, walkie talkie at the ready should this turn into a real riot. But the thrill is short-lived, and the performance is over by 9pm, having lasted less than an hour. As the lights come back on one punter expresses the general feeling of befuddled disappointment: ‘Is that all we get for £12?’

It is difficult to see what Jo Mitchell hoped to achieve. Her project was intrinsically problematic in its intention to meticulously recreate what was originally spontaneously chaotic and dangerously unpredictable. Tonight everything is controlled and contained and there is no real sense of danger in the staged mayhem. The Neubauten musicians were able to provoke extreme reactions in the crowd because they threw themselves wholly into their performances, pushing themselves to the limit, sometimes at the risk of getting hurt. There is none of that existential physicality in tonight’s performance and none of the corresponding intensity in the audience. People have come to watch the chronicle of a riot foretold and its main merit is as a reminder of how extraordinary the original night must have been.