Zurich by neko: Prodigy in Switzerland! Being originally Swiss (from Zurich) myself, this was supposed to be the easy one travelwise. Just a quick flight home to Switzerland, being picked up from the airport, no language barrier, no hotels ... or so I thought. My BA flight takes off from London Heathrow early evening on Thursday night. After about 30min the captain demands for some cabin crew to 'urgently come to the cockpit'. The rest of the cabin crew now rush back with all the food and pack everything away in a rush. Something must be wrong. Now the announcement. There are 'fumes and smoke' in the cockpit and with suspicion of a fire on board we need to have an emergency landing in Gatwick. The next 20min are the scariest thing that has ever happened to me in my life. With a possible fire, this plane could basically blow up any second and everyone knows this. The cabin crew, looking very nervous as well, rush around, telling everyone to practise brace position, where our nearest exits are and that we should leave hand luggage behind. The woman to my left starts praying and blabbers on about how Jesus will save us. We fly straight back into Gatwick. There is nothing gentle about this landing, I've never gone downwards so steeply. At the runway, far outside the terminal, we have about 30 ambulances and fire brigades waiting for us. By the time we finally leave that airplane I still can't speak and it takes me a while to get over this. BA put us up in a hotel overnight and I finally fly to Zurich on Friday morning. No communication from BA at all about what had really happened. Their official statement regarding the matter? It was a 'delayed' flight! Right, it can only get better from now on (although I do still wonder how many frequent flyer miles I will get for my flight from Heathrow to Gatwick airport). The Prodigy gig in Zurich on Friday is in the Maag Hall, in a kind of industrial looking area of the city with lots of bars and clubs in the neighbourhood. As a kind of local, it is of course my responsibility to give Kieron and Jim a tour of the area (with a few refreshments on the way) so we only actually get to the venue at about 10pm. The gig has been completely sold out for a while and the venue is packed. As I expected, in Switzerland Prodigy attract a more kind of 'grown up' audience, people kind of my age who have been into the music for a while, rather than all the young rock kids like in some of the previous countries I've seen them. This mainly because they were never really hyped up to 'star' status over here, but have, despite their no.1 albums, remained almost a bit 'underground'. My sister and I wander a bit towards the front now and the atmosphere is great, you can actually feel the anticipation and how DESPERATE Switzerland is for this gig. 10.30pm then the DJ leaves the stage and we all know whats next ... WAAAKE UP, WAAAKE UP!
The intro and Wake Up Call once more open the show. No matter what people say about how the Swiss are a reserved folk, they are always a really good audience and are far from reserved here tonight either. It's hard to remain calm, the band are once more at their best (I know i keep repeating myself in saying this, but it just is so). In particular also drums and guitars are excellent at this show. By the time Their Law comes on I'm jumping up and down like a madman (-woman) and if my stamina was any better I'm sure I would have continued all the way through the gig. Warning excellent as well. Somehow we make it to the 2nd row at the front on the right side of the stage... people are loving Warning, pushing and jumping and although this is still such a new track it goes down very well.
Spitfire then is recognised by most people as well, and all hell breaks loose when Breathe comes on. Girls / More Girls actually works particularly well tonight, again. I love Medusa's Path, especially that first bit of beats coming in. Hotride, same story as before. The track starts, and you think whoah, great track, but then it just doesn't work out completely. The Way It Is then, I don't dislike it at all, but just think it's the only track in the set that could be slightly shorter. Mindfields then with Maxim doing his thing definitely good, but even better is the next, new "back to school" track. Once more the audience does love it despite hearing it for the first time. I have my sister shouting in my ear "This track is fucking great!". yeah! I look back into the audience and all I see is hundreds of dancing, jumping and sweating people, hands into the air, way until the back of the venue. amazing once more.
Firestarter then already a first finale... and band are leaving the stage, just to come back again a couple of minutes later. Poison now, with Maxim on the mic, he's teasing the audience by walking along the front row for maximum audience contact. Great stuff. Unfortunately Smack My Bitch Up, great performance during this one again, is already the end and we know it. Although they must have played for over 90 min (I wouldn't be able to tell because someone stood on my watch at the show and destroyed it) it didn't feel long enough at all. We rush towards the bar to get some drinks but 15 min after SMBU has ended half of the audience are still there, shouting "ZU-GA-BE! ZU-GA-BE!" (an equivalent to "We want more"), despite knowing deep down that it's finished. After the show we briefly meet some fellow webmaster of mine, brainkiller, who has come all the way from Italy for this gig. Later I join some friends at the aftershow party inside the venue, which is included in the ticket, lasting for the rest of the night. DJ Smash FX, who happens to be a friend of a friend, is on, playing so-called 'Miami Beat'. A good party though, and even Liam turns up briefly to check it out. Excellent night, glad to have survived that flight! 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 |
