all photos: Anna Scialli
all words: Kacey Bysczek
Back in March, when we heard that Prodigy will be playing their first show in the US of A since 2005, at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC, we had no choice but to send Anna into the mouth of the beast to see what was up. Consider this a fair warning before their sold out show @ 930 Club tonight
Still insane after all these years:
Warning: Seeing The Prodigy is a bit like being hung over.
The lights were so bright that every time they flashed, I was sure I’d gone blind. Any attempts at adjusting to them inevitably failed.
Singer Keith Flint’s voice was practically indiscernible against the roaring metallic background of the industrial-rave beats for which the group is famous (except when it was bellowing, repeatedly, “Fuckin’
New York!”). No matter how far from a speaker you might have been standing, each note served as a reminder that eardrums really are very fragile, and quite breakable. Everyone in the room – from the parents who brought their infant to see The Prodigy to the loud group of bros on their way to the bar to the couple making-out to “Their Law” – became exponentially more annoying than they would have been anywhere else.
Yet, like a hangover, the show felt like a necessary experience, the type of pain that feels, in some way, worth it. Though the strobe lights get irritating, to say the least, the visual aspect of the performance – middle-aged dudes wearing make-up and too much hair product, skin flushed hot pink in the stage lights – was interesting. Flint, as well as Maxim Reality and Liam Howlett, is an enthusiastic performer. They bounce and leap and prowl around the stage, their confident swaggers breathing energy into the audience.
For anyone who can bear the sensory assault, the spectacle almost makes up for the pain, at least for the first few songs.
Related:
prettyyyy
March 30, 2009 at 2:34 pmWow. When I saw the note about Prodigy playing in NYC, I automatically assumed the The Prodigy had been forgotten so hard that it was a different (new) band with the same name. I must have listened to the Fire/Jericho EP 500 times my sophomore year of college.
March 30, 2009 at 3:26 pmmaybe this is a European thing, but EXACTLY HOW could prodigy ever be forgotten?
A whole generation of today’s 20somethings and 30 somethings raged to them so hard.
headliner of Ultra.
These dudes are huge in Europe, STILL.
Never forget.
^^^I was going to say, 2006? I was at that joint, I thought it was cool as shit…The Killers were insanely disappointing, as well…
May 18, 2009 at 5:40 pmwhat a horrible write up of an insanely amazing show. i dont know about the nyc show, but the 930 club show was nothing short of amazing. they really do give you a taste of what to expect in hell . i cant wait.
May 21, 2009 at 5:44 pmI really wanted to go… Prodigy are just one of those bands that really hit hard in England.
Started in the underground rave scene and made it mainstream…. One of the most influential bands in the modern era. Sadly largely overlooked in the USA.
Then again it takes 5 years or so for most Americans to catch on to whats cool. I won’t hold that against a society that is purely based on commercialism, it’s about the dollars bab-ee.
That Dubstep for example… been around in England for god knows how long… DC has just started spinning it. Wow just took you a few years to play something new.
I guess it just goes with the pretentious closed off attitude of most DC wanabe hipsters that are stuck in the eras of music gone and dead.
Alas I’m ranting, when all I wanted to say was that Prodigy are a great band that deserves massive for respect for being ambitious and remaining true to themselves.
June 10, 2009 at 9:41 am
prodigy’s the Experience used to be my all-time favorite album. Listening to the digitally re-mastered copy 10 years later, its just not the same….
March 30, 2009 at 2:20 pm