The Prodigy
Bournemouth BIC
January 27, 2010
I know The Prodigy have been around for a fair few years but I really didn’t expect their gig to make it so damn noticeable.
When support band Foreign Beggars enquire how many members of the audience were born in the 90s there’s a seriously muted response. And it doesn’t get much louder when they ask who was born in the80s . The 70s get a much bigger reception and if they had asked about the 60s, I suspect they would have raised the roof.
But they don’t. They get back to the matter in hand, which unfortunately involves mistimed, misfiring rap, with the vocals seemingly utterly disconnected to the backing track. There’s a pretty good beatboxer with them but his talents are more or less lost in the mess.
DJs South Central provide a way better second support slot. They get the crowd feeling lively and ramp up the atmosphere, leaving everyone feeling more than ready for the headliners. Shame then that there was a seriously long wait after that, with any atmosphere that had been built up slowly deflating.
So it’s a relief when The Prodigy finally show. And when they do, it’s to give an energetic, pulsating display. There are a few tracks from latest album Invaders Must Die but the setlist mainly relies on the old classics, which still sound as fresh and exciting as ever. The pace is relentless and most of the crowd dance in a frenzy but all too quickly, it’s over.
And it’s not purely because we’re having such a good time that’s it’s positively flown by. It’s because the band have finished their set a scant hour and a quarter since they came on. I know they’re getting older and I know they put loads of energy into their performances but seriously…?
Is an hour and 15 minutes really enough to justify a ticket that costs nearly £40 if you include booking fees and postage charges for those not fortunate enough to get to the box office on the day the tickets go on sale?
Not really, especially when you consider that Leonard Cohen plays for two and a half hours at nearly twice the age of anyone in The Prodigy. It’s really disappointing to leave a such a good show with a niggling sense of being short-changed.
Mind you, would any of the punters I heard leaving the gig and complaining about their aching limbs have been able to dance for much longer than that?
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