'Take Me to the Hospital' After Seeing the Prodigy Live
Ben Cottingham | 4th December 2015
Image via Facebook
Last night, on the 3rd December, I had the pleasure of seeing The Prodigy live. This, for me was a very big deal as they’re a band who have been on my ‘to see’ list for a very long time.
As I’m a total keeno, I arrived just after doors opened, browsing the overpriced (but very cool) merch, and taking in the gargantuan space which is the Barclaycard Arena. Don’t get me wrong, I’m used to big gigs, I saw AC/DC at Wembley Stadium a few months ago, but there’s something about indoor arenas that just blow my mind. Anyway, back to the music.
Taking my place at the very front (two or three fans from the barrier), the show begins. ‘But who is supporting?’ I hear you cry! Why dear reader, Public Enemy. YES. That Public Enemy. They were great, I mean, I confess I don’t know a huge amount of their music beyond the obvious few tracks; but Chuck D and Flavor Flav did bring the noise and got the crowd pumped, so good job guys. Now I could talk more about Public Enemy, but frankly I’m just too excited to move onto the main act of the night!
So, after half an hour or so of roadies, sorry, technicians fiddling with lights and fussing with fans, the lights went dark. Figures appeared on stage, the dreads of Maxim swinging wildly, Keith Flint flying across the stage like the madman he is, and Liam Howlett taking to the keys with more dignity than one would expect from the group. They open with Breathe, the crowd erupts into what felt like one giant mosh pit. After five minutes of jumping and quickly regretting wearing long sleeves I thought I had a moment to catch my breath when the first released single of the new album, Nasty, begins. It was at that point I knew I was going to go home at best covered in sweat and beer… At worst sweat and what I hope is warm beer (festival goers will shudder at this point). The crowd knew the new tracks as well as the old, so the reaction to each song was as electric as the last, we were having a great time, and it seemed The Prodigy were too! At several points Maxim called out to ‘the warriors in the middle’, namely the sweaty men who had all lost their t-shirts. Lovely image I know, bet you’re all jealous…
Now I’m not going to go into detail about every song they played, otherwise this review would be miles long, and nobody got time fo that. So I’ll give you the list and let you decide for yourselves whether it was a good one. I was all elbows and up in the air for the majority of the set, sweat and strobes burning my eyes, fighting for space in a seething mass of musical elation.
After an hour and a half of sweat from every pore in my battered body, my feet stamped on and my knees reduced to that of an arthritic pensioner I thought the show was over. How wrong I was. The last song. My favourite song; Take Me to the Hopsital came on, and pardon my French, but I went apeshit. The violent circle pits I had spent all night avoided called out to me on an almost spiritual level. I flew between fans, seeking the pit before the first drop. I pushed my way in to the outside of the circle and waited. And waited. And waited (it was seconds but I’m trying to build tension here!). The drop came, and I lost it, I was thrown forward into the sweaty embrace of a man twice my age, before being swung like a doll from a pram into a poor girl who found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her boyfriend didn’t seem too happy, sending me back from whence I came with a less than friendly shove. Somehow I found my way back to my friend, whose reaction was the ever so poetic ‘holy shit I saw you get smashed’.
Somehow I managed to limp my way back to the train station, and stumble my way to bed.
Waking this morning I felt how I imagine it feels after a heavy gym session, all aches and pain but the satisfaction that I threw my all into the night. The Prodigy beat the living crap out of me, ruined my hearing for a day and condemned my clothes to a boil wash/burning. But do you know what? I fucking loved it.