Salamanca by neko: Saturday, July, 30th 2005 - Salamanca, Spain Spain once more... One year ago this time I had never been to Spain, but now it's already the third time in 9 months I'm heading there. My friend Katie and I are on a Thursday night 'after work' flight to Alicante, and after a day chilling in the sun in Alicante town on Friday, we're off to Salamanca, where Prodigy will play their first of three shows in Spain. A 6am wake up call and 7 hours on the train later, we're indeed there, in the not very happening, but very pretty town of Salamanca, west of Madrid. We get plenty of time to see the city and chill out a bit, then around 10pm we head to the Sala Multiusos where the gig tonight is taking place. Not much happening there yet so we have another drink and go back in at around 11pm. Some support act with a small Spanish woman singer with an amazing voice is on and finishes just before 11. Changeover for Prodigy and they're on at 11:20pm. The well known Wake Up Intro comes on and the band come on stage to start with Wake Up Call. Audience reaction is excited and despite the fact that the venue is only half full, the atmosphere is good. What follows next though is a surprise. Some new jam track. It's called the Wake The Fuck Up Jam and one of the hardest fastest tracks I've heard from The Prodigy to date. It perfectly brings the old Prodigy back into the AONO era with some samples from Wake Up Call, Spitfire nightbreed remix and with both, Maxim and Keith, doing some vocals. Liam ssays he's written the track this same afternoon before the sound check. Trust me, you can't wait to hear this one, I'm very impressed! Their Law as usual fantastic. The audience is still not filling out the whole place, but out of the people who are here no one is standing still. This is followed by the New Warning. hmmmmm... In response to my comments on this after the last gig I later tonight have the whole band question me what exactly it is then I don't like about it ("So you're saying it's the vocals?" - Keith). Liam also disapproves of my drum n' bass comments in relation to the track. All in good fun, of course, but there's definitely no easy way out of this one for me now! The new down tempo fill follows, got no name for this one, apart from that it has a real Massive Attack - Mezzanine vibe to it.... another good one to watch out for. Breathe then, your general audience pleaser - very nice. I'm pretty sure then we get another very short new fill afterwards - don't remember details I'm afraid (that's what happens whenever I have a drink afterwards) - but definitely this show is just full of new bits and bops turning up everywhere! Then Spitfire comes on, this is one of the most well known tracks now. It gets even better though with one of the highlights of the gig: a massive Back to School. Tonight is no different, the new version of this works well with the new instrumental part in the middle and the new vocals. Definitely one of my favourites now, very cool. Firestarter then is really good tonight and now links into Action Radar in a way that makes it almost merge into one track. The whole changeover between the tracks is much longer, but eats away a big part of the original Action Radar link now, which unfortunately makes the latter a bit a less strong track in the set now. It's more an outro to Firestarter now than a highlight of the set in its own right as it used to be. Surprise, surprise, next is Hotride. I know they've played it in Russia once or twice, but apart from there this hasn't been played live since December. It always used to be the 'track that never really worked live', but it's actually nice to see it again. I like it tonight, not sure whether it's been rearranged a little. Voodoo People then is a great close to the first part of the set - this track just still gets every single person in the room dancing. So great that they've brought this back, I love it. Very very good show so far, then the band of course return for their encore, starting with Poison. Actually, starting with Liam doing something on a microphone attached to one of his keyboards, producing sounds through a vocoder, I'm not quite sure what that was about. Anyways, then Poison and Maxim leads into an extended version of the release yo'delf fill, or method beat as it's called now, with spelling out the "P - O - I - S - O - N". SMBU then follows, one of the most intense tracks of the set as usual.... crowd reaction once more at the max. The band now act as if they want to leave, playing the "you aren't shouting loud enough" game with the audience. The audience then (predictably) shout loud enough and the band return with a brilliant Out of Space. Great great gig, cannot even describe how good this one felt with all the new stuff in it and the great Spanish audience.
Benidorm by neko: Sunday, July, 31st 2005 - Benidorm, Spain Since it took us 7h to get here, we obviously now need to get back, 7hours again. So Saturday is one of those nights where we stumble into the hotel at 3am and order a wake up call for 5am. I can't even describe how shit I feel at 5am in the morning getting up again, having had a bit less than 4h sleep in total in the last 2 nights. We catch our 6am train though and by 1pm we're back in Alicante. But now we still have to make our way to nearby Benidorm where the gig tonight is taking place, and due to unlucky timing this takes another two hours. So, by 3pm we finally get to our hotel. It's a bit of a shocker. Gran Hotel Bali is supposedly a 4 star place, one of the highest buildings in Spain (43 floors). As we enter it's pure package holiday hell. I have never in my life been on a package holiday and now I know why. It's full season of course, the place is full of tourists with hundreds of children and the place is pretty horrible too. Not having had much sleep doesn't help either. No offence to anyone from here, it's actually a very nice part of Spain, but this whole tourist thing here freaks me out and I cannot wait to leave again! We're trying to make the best of it though and head to the beach for the rest of the day which isn't too bad, nicer than in Alicante at least and the Mediterranean sea is nice and warm. So I guess I shouldn't complain, there's worse places to be in. Then in typical package holiday style we of course enjoy the half-board provided buffet style supper with all 2000 other guests (and their kids) - fun. Later that evening then we're of to the Foietes stadium where the 'Benidorm Music Meeting' is taking place. Arriving at 11pm we've missed first band Echo & the Bunnyman. I hear they were big in the 80s... or it was a British thing? Kieron and Rob are into them - and I am getting told off for being 'too young'. But as we get into the venue Mr James Brown comes on, very unique line up before Prodigy of course. The audience is some interesting mix of people of all age groups. We're sat in the bar and watch the gig from a bit further away, all very interesting to watch. I never really realised I knew all these tracks by James Brown, but as the set goes on I realise I know pretty much all of them (maybe I should have watched Echo & the Bunnyman after all and the same would have happened?). Just around midnight then Mr Brown is finished (after dragging on with some of the tracks for a bit too long sometimes) and we get in place for The Prodigy. My tiredness has gone now, I'm all excited for the show as usual. Half an hour later and the band are on. The set list is the same as last night: Wake Up Intro encore: Tonight's show is once more amazing... I don't even know where to start. First of all the setlist is the same as last night, but quite a bit is different. Some of the tracks have been changed, a lot of spontaneous little fills here and there, some jamming and that kind of stuff. Also performance wise such a great show again. If they keep this spontaneity going until next weekend for the three indoor UK shows then we're going to get some of the best shows ever. Be there if you can ... I mean it. The new track, the Wake the fuck up Jam is one of my favourites now. That and Voodoo People and Back to School are definitely the highlights of the very strong set now. I also like Hotride back in the set, it still seems to be ever changing, but much for the better every time. The audience here in Benidorm is great as well. Thank god my fear of just random holiday makers turning up doesn't materialise and it actually feels like at a proper show, many people evidently here just to see Prodigy and that with great anticipation. As I write this it's 11pm the following night and I'm sat in Alicante waiting for our delayed flight back to London. The band are playing a third Spanish show in Vigo tonight and I am sure it's as good as the other two. Once more it feels to me like they were better than ever this weekend. And although I've pretty much lost count of how many times I've seen them over the last year I'm still amazed every single time again.... and the new Warning doesn't change that.
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