Liam Howlett DJing at Bug Jam 24th July 99
Lets face it: Liam Howlett is amazing. I didnt expect it, but this DJ set at Bug Jam really blew me away! I have seen so many amazing gigs in the last 2 weeks, including Prodigy, Garbage, Blur, Faithless, PSI etc, I had seen Liam DJing already twice before in Dublin and at Gatecrasher but nothing came close to this!!!!
At the beginning it didnt look as it would be good at all. For the last 2 weeks I was deciding and changing my mind every hour if I would go to see Liam DJing at Bug Jam or Janus Stark live in Peterborough at that saturday 24th July. Juliette and I then finally in the last minute made up our mind to go to see Liam, simply cause there would be another chance to see Janus Stark (hopefully soon!!) but for Liam we didnt know...
So we arrived in Wellingborough, met there Pete from EN and went to Santa Pod, the place where it would happen! We arrived by Taxi and were about the only people who entered the site on foot, else it was only cars (since Bug Jam is a VW festival.....) We got some sort of program, but there was no time or date on it, just 'Special guest: Liam Howlett from The Prodigy'
We went towards the stage (about 8pm) there was some Hip Hop act on stage but not many people watching. In fact, the whole thing seemed pretty empty. Next to the 3 stages (we didnt really know ANY other act there except Liam) there also was a little fairground, but nothing really amazing. Really bored at 9pm we went to the stage to wait in front row now. There was one Hip Hop act after the other on stage, but although they were not bad at all, my mood was as below zero as it could get. I wished to be in Peterborough at the JS gig now, and since there was no sign of Liam yet, I had my doubts if he would come here at all, since to me this seemed to be a real crap event.
Next was a breakdance crew, really good actually!! It got a bit more crowded now, a girl behind me asked me 'when the Prodigy guy' will be on. I still didnt see it happen that Liam would turn up here.
At about 10pm, suddenly at the side of the stage I spotted that blonde mohawk!!! Waheyy!! Liam was here! And so was Keith, again wearing a baseball cap! My mood changed suddenly! Wow, he was really here, then! While the breakdancers were finishing, Keith and Liam were just sitting on some chairs at the side of the stage.
The Breakdancers were finished and towards 10.30pm Liam was going to get ready. It was dark now, but the whole field was full of people now. Liam without a Clash T-Shirt for once (as at Gatecrasher and in Athens) was just wearing black and some glasses. (I dont think it was sunglasses since it was very dark....?)
Then he started with 'Music Response' by Chemical Brothers, and wow, it was amazing all!! There is no way to reproduce the whole set now, cause it was far tooo much. There were many extracts from Dirtchamber, as he did it in Dublin, there was Chemical Brothers and unknown dance tracks as at Gatecrasher, there was Hip Hop, since he was the 'headliner' of the 'hip hop stage' all in all the perfect mix of all cool music available on this planet! Keith this time didnt make his way to the crowd, probably cause there wasnt really a direct way from the stage out of the backstage area, but we could see him at the side of the stage really getting into it, just dancing there for himself. He didnt really seem to care, if people did know who he was or not, sometimes went to Liam to give him a cigarette or have a chat. After about 30 min suddenly everybody started to look at the back of the crowd, someone on stage was pointing at it, so I looked back and, there was a fire! Some Red Bull tent at the back was burning, but Liam, just having a laugh about it on stage, played on of course.
Liam did the perfect performance. Already in Dublin and Gatecrasher he was good, but now at this Bug Jam event I know that it is as good as a DJ set can get. There is no way he can do it any better, I think. He was mixing together the coolest music on the planet, from time to time let some snippet of Dirtchamber in and with every tune he played he surprised the crowd again. He never played what we actually expected him to play, he switched between styles as I have never seen it, but with his superb DJ skills he made it sound great! In comparison, the Gatecrasher set now almost seems boring to me. At Gatecrasher he didnt play anything from DC, here he did, for example 'Radio Babylon' by meat beat manifesto, Medicine's 'I'm sick' , 'The Mexican' by Babe Ruth and 'Rock The House' by The B-Boys. Same as in Dublin he also played Basement Jaxx, but NOT 'Red Alert' this time.
And he DID surprise us a lot! Towards midnight, he just played some dance tune, but suddenly switched to 'Bug man' from Blur, which is a great song, but I wouldnt have expected it in Liams set. He manged to fit it so perfectly in there that it became danceable and you felt like jumping around to it. But as soon as you got used to it a sudden style change again and a well known voice : 'hey girl, hey boys....superstar DJ's....here we go!!' , wow, it was amazing how he made the change from Blur to Chemical Brothers without that anyone was even really aware of the huge style change. Also in Dublin and Gatecrasher he had played that track towards the end, so this seemed to be the last hightlight now. But Liam still had the last surprise to come: As soon as he had finished Chemical Brothers went on with some dance tracks, then 'Shure Shot' from London Funk Allstars as on Dirtchamber but faster and soon after he topped the whole set with PRETTY VACANT by SEX PISTOLS!! This was the first time of this 3 sets I've seen he actually played Sex Pistols. Everybody was going mad, the whole field was jumping and Liam was looking amused at the crowdsurfer who was approaching the stage. But this was the end of an amazing set, and although everybody was screaming 'more, more' and 'Liam, Liam' it was finished.
Next Liam Howlett DJ dates: 4th september, homelands, Edinburgh (to be reviewed by neko) and 25th september, homelands, Ireland
I saw many people with videocameras, so please, mail me if you can get it for me...
copyright by neko