Prodigy Live @ Trent FM Arena

Saturday 11th April 2009 in Nottingham was kick ass!

We entered the arena at 7pm (it opened at 6:30) and Pete Jordan was on warm up, playing some electro house and bouncy breaks, speakers were set pretty quiet though yet the arena was already filling up nicely.

Next up were Dizzee Rascal (+1) and DJ Semtex and they were rocking! Dizzee started with his version of Ting Ting’s Thats not my name – “they call me rude boy!” – which was first aired on Jo Whiley’s live lounge on Radio 1.

Dizzee Rascal live on stage

He dropped all his big hits including Flex, Fix Up, Dance with Me, Rascal etc and for me was a refreshingly entertaining act.  A couple of his new tracks were played including Road Rage and the next single (Bonkers I think?). Dizzee seemed like a strange choice when I first heard he was supporting on the tour but he really stood his own and to be honest was one of the best support acts I have seen on a tour of this stature.

Then we had a 30 minute set from Kissy Sell-out who i’ve seen perform “live” before and it was dull, but this was a DJ set and it was entertaining and varied enough to keep us dancing with a selection of big electro, techno and dubstep tunes.

Prodigy as expected were awesome, and they cranked their touring soundsystem right up (we were on the front row for the entire evening at the left hand stack).  They opened the set with Worlds on Fire, dropped a number of older tunes such as Jericho (!!!!), No Good, and finished up with Out of Space..

Watch out, scallies about

They did of course play plenty of their recent live favourites and new album tracks including Firestarter, Breathe (plus the new dubstep mix which is quite good but predictable), Smack my bitch up (which has to be my ultimate live track), warriors dance, commanche, take me to the hopsital, omen, invaders must die, run with the wolves….

Prodigy on stage

I preferred this gig to when I saw them at Brixton Academy 4 years ago, the crowd were mad up for it and there were an intense mosh pit for Smack my Bitch up coupled with a great lighting rig and soundsystem too.  The dancefloor was pretty packed as well as all the seats taken up around the arena.  Shame I didnt get many photos but I was enjoying bouncing around far too much….

Maxim and Keith seemed to be enjoying themselves too, getting involved in the crowd (part of their trademark surely) and there was much appreciation for Liam when he took a bow at the end.  Awesome gig

The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die

The Prodigy, along with DJ Hype and John Peel, got me hooked on dance music back in 1995.  I was 13 when “Poison” was released in the UK as a single, and I remember seeing the video on MTV and knowing that I had to buy it.  I was obviously too young to catch the first wave of Prodigy releases but as you can see from the photo below it didn’t take me long to snap up the back catalogue.

I’m missing a couple from the collection though, firstly the Voodoo People / Out of Space remixes CD but I think I’ve secured a copy of that on e-bay (*edit* damn, was outbid over the weekend…) . Secondly, the Spitfire CD single (was originally just available for download but it appears there is a physical copy – currently £66.53 for a mint copy on e-bay!!)

As you can see, I also have a lot of the import versions of the CD singles that feature additional / alternative track listings.  More info here.

My Prodigy CDs

So my initial reactions to “Invaders must die”…?

Yeah, i really like it.  Its full of energy and im sure the new tracks will work wonders live (off to see them in Nottingham in April), bring it on.  Heard “Warriors dance” and “worlds on fire” last summer from some youtube videos taken from their live shows, probably the best 2 tracks on the album for me but I guess im still growing to the rest of them.

“Omen” has certainly grown on me since buying the album as I wasn’t convinced when I first heard it in January. Same goes for the opening title track “invaders must die”, but both of them fit perfectly into the album.  “Stand Up” sounds like a late 90s Chemical Brothers track, which isnt a bad thing as they both trod common ground around that time.

Sure, “Run with the wolves” has obvious parallels with the recently massive Pendulum, but The Prodigy were there first!

So the real icing on the cake will be seeing them live again.  And all fingers crossed for Volume 2 in the Dirtchamber sessions series!