the prodigy Europe 2002

seat beach rock, belgium, guest review by Jesse Gorter

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Before I will start reviewing this concert, I like to point out that this was my first liveconcert ever with The Prodigy onstage. This may affect my judgement, but I shall try to explain what goes through you when you see them live, and what reactions were from the local people.

Well then. Me and a good friend of mine Raymond were just dropped in Oostende by car, but we had to travel back ourselves since the one who drived us was going home anyway. So we just walked to the festival and relaxed a bit, it was still 19:00 anyway and we were not coming here for Muse anyway. Walking at the beach, then having a nice beer, eventually around 20:00 we decided to check it out.

A lot of mud, the festival place was pretty huge, but that just leaves more place to enjoy the liveshow. The horrible guitar rifs screaming at you while this band called Muse is trying to enjoy the crowd, which succeeds to a certain extend. To me it is a relieve it was over after 4 minutes, HOORAY!

I am not going to bother you a lot about how Garbage absolutely failed to enjoy me, or the people around me,- jumping was a sin it seemed- nor am I going to tell you how much Belgian Chips sucks because like all other countries besides Netherlands they absolutely fail to make decent mayonaise. Ah well let's get to the point where Prodigy was about to begin.

I was at the front since when Garbage left a lot f space was available at the front, everyone was moving for their well deserved break, but that made it possible to get everywhere you wanted.
Music starts playing again, and...wait a minute...Hey that's the prodigy logo! Two rockets, the whole set looks awesome. Kool Keith coming out of the stereo...makes the vibe better for me and Raymond, since we recognize it, unlike the other people. Now when I start reviewing this whole thing: I can mess up the way the songs followed each other, because I forgot how it went exactly, so my report may not be 100% true.

Finnaly after 10 mins of waiting the announcer screams: "Who the fuck wants it, shut up, shut up! It's from the UK, it's the prodigy!!!!".
Hehe that was fucking exciting, now the army march is played which sounds intense, so did their law...
Rocking, jumping, moving, damn did that rocked me. Hard to breath, the air was HOT! because of all the people. After the song was finished I finnaly got in the Rhythm of making sure not to be punched to death. Still it seems to me that the whole show is more "Cooltype" then really "crazy" And I mean the performance on stage, I was more jumping the anything but I remember maxim screaming a lot more on the video's/mp3'I have. It may be the mic which seems to be quite soft.
Next is Trigger.
Trigger is a hit! People jumping with only me and raymond singing "ONE, Two to the Three, Get the trigger to me!" but everyone was into it, amazing.
Then Breathe..Shocking...Fucking noise....one of the highlights of this set, just with trigger and their law. I don't remember the stage performance since I was busy with trying to match maxims high vocals: "PSYCHO!" ;)
Little Goblin was next, not really special...good time to catch your breathe and to let your voicerecover.
Smack my bitch up next, great response but not as good as breathe. Still it rocked, the line upo after this is not in my memories very well, so it may be totally twisted.
Let's start about mindfields and poison: The first track manages to get people jumping at the end, where poison got people jumping all the time, poison was another really good track, really enjoyed it.
Nuclear is there as well, but the beats seem rather soft and the vocal of maxim seems to soft this time. And the downpoint is: The guitart melody was even better on the mp3 ! the melody was not really clear, this maybe because of the other guitarguy, jim davies instead of ali?

There is also a guitar track which I had never heard, but did not really suprise me. It was nice but I did not really remember it very well. Was this dust yoself?

Babys got a temper got down REALLY well, this track is wicked, and people just loved it.
Same goes for firestarter which was great and fuel my fire.

Then they left...after 50 minutes...wasn't it suposed to take 1.5 hours? That was the big downer, along with nuclear for me.
What can I say? The happening was incredible, although I felt like it could be better if they played longer, and put some more...extras in the show, like that intrumental part that used to be in poison, or Keith dancing...Maxim looked more like "Showing off" in a cool way than really screaming the hell out of us, which he somehow lacked to do. On the other hand: The music and their performance still made you loose yourself in an amazing gig! Funny thing was that they were wearing their babys got a temper clothes on stage! after the fuel my fire ending they quickly disapeared, followed by a woman who mentioned it was the prodigy, followed by "BOOOOOOOOOOOH! FUCK YOOOOUUUUUU!" from the audience..why did that stupid festival mentioned 1.5 hours of showtime instead of 50 minutes? The show was bizar and they tried their best to make something great out of it, although it seemed rushed sometimes. But they did not deserved the booo's. The woman tried to calm down the audience, failed and yelled: "Fuck you too!".

And then, talking to my amazed friends (Raymond and a belgian named luke we met). They had the best time ever, and really, so did I. The jumping, the dancing, the screaming, has garbage watched? has muse? I hope so, not that they can match prodigy ever but still.

Some ideas about the show:
Rayond thought it was fucking awesome, but had the idea the band was tired for some reason. Luke mentioned the "Cool" attitude and said it was a different way of making a show. He also had the feeling they were told to hold back, becase they knew they were gonna play 1 hour instead of longer.
Most reactions were like:
The performance was awesome as ever but they played so short (not knowing 1 hour is their standard), they yelled less, they were fucking great, to bad they played short etc etc....

I haven't read any other review so I wonder what the fans think of this gig, for me: It tastes like more!

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