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The Dublin Experience
Yes, Liam Howlett will have his first official appearance as DJ in public for many years already 6th June in Dublin, and not at Gatecrasher 19th June in Leeds, as everybody is thinking, so I have to be there!.
Gatecrasher will be huge. About 40 DJ’s will be there, all the big names you can think of and about 10'000 people dancing, watching, having a good time. Dublin will be different. And thats what makes it more attractive to me. The name of the event is simply ‚Liam Howlett at the RedBox‘. The Redbox is a part of the big club in Dublin called ‚The Pod‘. Except Liam there will also be Darren Emerson (that guy from Underworld) and James Lavelle, thats already it.
I’ve just read that Liam has just finished that Porno Soundtrack thing, and is working hard on new material for the already so much talked about ‚next Prodigy album‘ (some people say March 2000, I go for November 2000)
I’m curious, what is Liam going to play??? He surprised us all with the great Dirtchamber DJ mix album, but live it will be different again. Is he going to play just tracks from Dirtchamber? Will he be playing tracks that influence that ‚new stuff‘ he is currently writing? Will he even be DJing behind a curtain as I once heard him saying in an interview??? What kind of people will be there?? Hundreds of Prodigy fans who wanna see Liam of The Prodigy or will he be treated as a ‚normal DJ‘?
In Dublins ‚eventguide‘ I found the following article:
LIAM HOWLETT at the RedBox. The Prodigys main man comes to Dublin for his first ever DJ gig here. Expect to hear everything from early hip-hop and rave upto punk and funk metal (I kid you not). Also playing on the night and making this a top line-up are Darren Emerson, James Lavelle, Johnny Moy, Billy Scurry, Mark Dixon and Glen Brady. Get there early or you’ll be dissappointed! Sunday 6th June 10pm-late.
Then the big night arrived:
At 9pm we could go in. Only The RedBox was open yet (where Liam was supposed to play). I really liked the club from the beginning!! There was a dancefloor and on a about 3metre high podium the DJ. But it was Johnny Moy, no sign of Liam yet.
After about an hour they opened this sort of balcony, it was great, I had a place where I was like 2 metres away from the DJ and could look down on him. Next to the DJ there was also a sort of balcony wich led to the backstage area. Towards 11pm another guy came to the DJ, wearing a beachhat and sunglasses, so you could hardly see who it was. A guy next to me thought it was Liam, but I knew it wasnt. It was James Lavelle. So I again asked someone when Liam would play then.....0.30 he would play... Ok, so another 1,5 hours.... I decided just to stay on that balcony, where I could basically look on the DJ's fingers and that 'backstage balcony' and also watch the dancefloor. James Lavelle started at 11pm. His set was really 'mixed', there wasnt only dance, but also stuff like Aerosmith or Queen.
Some of the other DJ's were coming and going on that balcony watching the people, for example Darren Emarson, just popping in and then leavin again. But no sign of Liam yet...... Then at 11.30 this door to the backstage area opened again and some guys came into the 'backstage balcony' next to the DJ table. Not only 'some guys', one of them was Liam!!! Finally!! His hair was shorter than it used to be (about like in the 'No Good' video) and he had some sort of blonde stripe in he middle through it. First looks strange but its kinda cool. It first looked like if he had shaved it off in the middle like Keith used to have it. There were 4 other people coming in with him, 3 I didnt know, but one of them was a guy a bit smaller than Liam, wearing a grey baseball cap, mirrored sunglasses, well, of course, it was Keith!! He wasn't bald at all anymore!! You could see that there was hair coming out under the cap, he was wearing. In fact, he has longer hair than Liam. So not many people actually saw that it was Keith. I knew it was him only from seeing him walking in and then as I saw his earpiercings it was no doubt at all anymore, that it WAS him. (Christ, do I sound like a hysterical teenager here?? nooooooo, not at all!! ;))
Unlike all the other people they didnt just stand there a few minutes and then go back again, no, they were just standing on this balcony for the next whole hour about 3 metres away from me. Liam was looking critically at James Lavelle, smoking one cigarette after the other, chewing his chewing gum in the rhythm of the music. 3 guys next to me were waving at Liam and he grinned over. Keith was talkin to everybody on that balcony, sometimes dancing. Would be great to see Liam DJing from the place I was now, I would be able to see everything he was doing!! But well, towards 0.30 the security guys came and told everybody had to leave this balcony I was on, only the dancefloor was open. OK, so I went there, still James Lavelle was playing, I was on the dancefloor, Liam and Keith watching the people from their balcony. James Lavelle played 2 songs that are on Dirtchamber, Liam grinning at him, and then James Lavelle finished his set with 'Smells like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana. (I said it wasnt 'dance music-only' at all!)
Now Liam took over. He started with stuff from Dirtchamber, then changed to some HipHop Stuff and then 2 tracks from DC again. There was a lot of experiments of beats, once again, Liam produced a sound you cannot give a name to. It wasnt like DC, but a lot of stuff from it, I think he probably reproduced all Dirtchamber that was possible to do live.
Well, about 5 minutes after he started I realized that the one and only Keith Flint was just dancing about 1 metre next to me!! He just came into the crowd!! Noone actually recognized him! There were about 400 people in a room who paid 20£ to see Liam Howlett, but noone recognized Keith Flint! Well, anyway, I did!!! He was standing in the corner, then started to dance. I didnt care that much actually, it was such a great atmosphere in the club that made you forget if that guy over there was a member of your favourite band and pretty famous as well. But it was a pretty weird feeling, seeing Liam as DJ 3 metres on top of you and having Keith Flint dancing next to you!
Liam did a great job! He always had some tracks from Dirtchamber (almost all of them, actually) then something else, then again a track or 2 from DC and then again something else. With 'something' else I mean for example when he played the new Chemical Brothers song 'Hey Girl, Hey Boy' in full lenght, but also a lot of Hip Hop as expected, but not like plain Hip Hop, he mixed it together with whatever. He also played a very remixed version of 'red alert' by Basement Jaxx (XL by the way), but also quite a few dance classics and even some sort of regggea once! Liam looked very concentrated during his set, especially the 1st hour. Then he started to smoke again and looked more relaxed. Unlike the other Dj's there was (as expected) no 'put your hands in the air' or something like this from Liam, he was just absorbed in the music. By the way, he didnt play the Sex Pistols and no Prodigy at all.
Flinty wouldnt be Flinty if he could stay standing in a corner, oh, no, after about 45min he started to go absolutely mad, dancing around in that just so 'Keith Flint-way', which made him famous. Suddenly you could see him in the middle of the dancefloor, dancing with everybody who was around. Some people started pointing at him, but still he wasnt really 'recognized'.
Suddenly it was 2.30 am and the lights went on... People were klapping their hands, yelling:' We want more!!' ...and Liam already made a record ready, but then a security guy came and told him he wasnt allowed to play anymore!!! Thats what the law is in Ireland (read about it in the current MUSIK magazine..) You could see that Liam wouldnt have mind at all to play more, but he couldnt... :-(
Now everybody was standing in the queue for the cloakroom, many had already left. As I was one of the last persons in that queue, when I got my jacket, there were only about 6 people in the room left. Liam came back on that balcony and Keith even just into the room. Some people started talking to Liam and he was actually answering all the stuff those people asked him, and yeah, really nice. I mean he could have just walked 2 metres and he would have been invisible behind the backstage door, but he was staying there on this balcony, having a drink, talking to the people standing down here, smiling. So I decided to unwrap my WEL cover and although I didnt really ask for it, but Liam just said, 'wait I'll come down' :-) Keith still wasnt really recognized. A young boy came to him 'Excuse me, are you Keith Flint from The Prodigy?' I couldnt help laughing now. 'NO, I'm not Keith Flint I'm......' and then he said some very long, very strange name, but in a funny way. Then Liam came, and Keith: 'Dont panic, people, dont faint, dont collaps' Liam just laughing. Well, anyway, I got a signed WEL now. After signing it, with even putting my name on it, Liam wrote something on top of the WEL, and explained me: 'It means 'Prodigy' in case you cant read it' he said....oh, thanks,...*s* .. Before they left Liam said 'thanks for coming here!' ... Oh, no problem at all, really!
Final conclusion? Well, it was definitely worth going. Liam was great. Whatever he is doing he is doing it in such a brilliant way, I should have known his DJ Set would be brilliant. Gatecrasher will be good, too, but can never ever be as good as it was in this small club. And despite their such massive success in whatever they are doing, Liam and Keith have definitely stayed pretty normal and down to earth.