Spain Part 3/4 - Barcelona by neko: The day starts pretty much where the last one ended, it's 5am and we get a wake up call. At least no hangover today, so it's bearable, but 2h sleep two nights in a row is pretty harsh on an old woman like me. Somehow I manage to drive the car back to the airport and we get our flight and are in Barcelona by about 9am. Can't check into hotel yet, so need to drag our tired bodies out for a wander. After the shit day yesterday this is actually pretty nice. I immediatly like Barcelona, nice little cafes, nice shops and a lovely old town, so this is all pretty good now. The day is yet to get better though and to help out a bit we start drinking at about 5pm. This keeps us going until we go to the venue at about 8pm. Once inside the Razzmatazz the first impression is great, the venue is extremely small, the stage is tiny and all is very dark. The usual support DJs come on and after a few quick drinks we head to the front of the stage. There isn't even such a thing as a photopit at this venue, its just stage and the audience right in front of it, so it's gotta be intense. At 10pm then the Wake Up intro and Wake Up Call. ooooh, great! Can I just say how much I love all these Spanish audiences. While in other countries there's always lots of pushing around, here in Spain everyone's just there to have a good party. We're right at the front and still have space to dance and move around as we want. Their Law is next, then Warning, again both just raw energy live. Both, Keith and Maxim, are about as good as they get today. Spitfire now, then Breathe, they all sound soooo good. I have to admit I can't remember details, but Liam plays so many new, different links at each show now that it's hard to keep track of. The 'James Bond' link definitely gets played again and some other old as well as new ones I've never heard. The intro beats to Girls / More Girls are slightly different, and it works well. As usual Medusa's Path is a bit a calmer part of the set. Hotride, still not my favourite as a live track, but Keith is so good tonight, he does manage to make it work. Unlike last two nights, no new track here, and next on is The Way It Is with slight changes built in ... Then, Mindfields, Maxim starts of with his usual performance, but then, boooom, sound and lights are gone, power outage! Band leave the stage, but soon return and continue their storming set with Firestarter. I've seen them have power outages at shows before and usually it had some impact on the atmosphere. but here it just does not matter whatsoever, the vibe is as good as ever. Next now is the new track - "back to school" - as i decided to call it for now. Apparently this is indeed the reworked full version of the Reading & Leeds intro (2002). Liam got reminded of it when doing the interview on nekosite last month and decided to bring it back! Very nice, the beats of this track. Maxim's vocals work well with it and Keith does some very old skool dance moves to it. Because of the power outage there is no break for encore and it goes straight into Poison, once more with the new beats in the end, then Smack My Bitch Up. This a great ending to a great gig. For me personally it feels like the best I've seen ever by any band. Beats anything I can remember in terms of intensity, atmosphere and performance. Later this evening Liam tells me that he's now using a new computer program called 'Ableton Live', which allows him to work directly from his mac at the live show and therefore gets to be more spontanous during the set! A first result of this are changes in Girls, The Way It Is, etc! The rest of the night is a bit of a blur then. We head out for drinks with Kieron until they kick us out because of closing time at just about every place (with a plastic cup of vodka lemonade firmly in our hands). 11 hours of straight drinking, not a bad day at all. [Part 4 - Bilbao] back to prodigy live [go home] (If you copy this, please link back to this URL) www.nekosite.co.uk - copyright © 1998-2004 by neko - all rights reserved |
