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Somerset House

by neko:

Saturday, August 6th, Somerset House, London

6am in the morning on Saturday.... where am I? Oh right, in a hotel in Edinburgh and have a wake up call in order to get my 8am flight back to London. Just three hours earlier I was still in a club where Leeroy was DJing after last night's excellent and very hot Prodigy gig in town, so I feel rather shattered and hungover. I get back to London at 10am...nice to be home for a change on a Saturday and Sunday .... (AND still see the Prodigy!).

The gig tonight is part of the Grolsch Summer Set events in the lovely Somerset House in central London. It feels very weird as it's also just around the corner from where I'm usually working, just a 20 minute bus ride from home. Nice.

We get there pretty early already before 8pm, mainly because I don't want to miss Adam Freeland's set (favourite DJ ever since Australia). His set doesn't start as early as we thought, so plenty of time to visit the bar and meet up with people.

If you haven't been to Somerset House you cannot imagine how nice this venue is. It's this little courtyard, outside stage, holding less than 3k people, in the middle of central London. It's still daylight and sunny weather at about 9pm when Adam Freeland comes on. Massive set...really love it. Brings back nice memories from the Australia tour in March as well (where he had been supporting Prodigy).

The sun is going down and at about 10:30pm then it's time for the Prodigy.

They come on and just instantly win the place over with the following set list:

NEW Intro
Wake Up Call
Wake the fuck up Jam
'No Good' samples
Their Law
Warning (remix)
Breathe
Spitfire
'Osaka Fill'
Back to School
Firestarter
Action Radar Link
Memphis Bells
Hotride
Voodoo People

encore:
Poison
Method beat
Smack my bitch up
Out of Space

There's a lot to say about this show but I had too good a night to give a detailed recap. In simple words though, it just totally worked. The set list was pretty much perfect, the location very nice and I had a pretty amazing time there, before, during and after the show.

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Brixton Academy

by neko:

Sunday, August 7th, Brixton Academy, London

Same city, different venue - it's another Prodigy night!

Yet again we head there early enough to have a few drinks and I meet some of the same people again as last night and some new and old faces, all very nice.

Great to see Prodigy in Brixton again. They've played here so many times that it's easy to forget that before their two shows here last December, they hadn't actually played here since December '97 - that's a full 7 years! 

Just as last night already, there is a NEW Intro. Not necessarily anything special on it's own, but does the job of opening the show. From then on it gets exciting.
Wake Up Call
is as usual a great track. Suddenly we find ourselves very near the front. Then the Wake the fuck up Jam. This is actually my favourite live track now. It's so fast, so intense, the name couldn't suit it better. Looking back over my shoulder I can see the whole crowd in this venue going mad to this amazingly fast track, with the arabic sounding samples on top of the fest beats.
The now following 'No Good' samples are as always leaving you there waiting for more - it's just not fair! The whole audience are now singing along, expecting them to continue the track on, but soon this moment is over and we go straight into Their Law. As everything tonight this is pretty amazing. The whole band seem at their best, giving 200% supported by one of the bets audiences I've ever seen. Whereas yesterday was a beautiful evening, tonight is just about the intensity.
Now the new Warning (remix) - I have to say here that it actually works tonight and that is  solely because of Keith - he's just amazing during this track. Nice one!
Breathe
and Spitfire then some obvious crowd pleasers - I can't stress enough how great this show feels.
Now, just as last night, Liam plays that track known as 'Osaka Fill' . This has only ever been played live once - in Osaka last November. In the Osaka version it had some massive beats at the end and if there's one thing I don't like about the Brixton gig, then the fact that the amazing beats that are part of this fill don't get played. Very teasing of Mr Howlett! The misery about that is soon forgotten though as we lead into an amazing Back to School.
Firestarter
- need I say more about that, it's the obvious crowd favourite still. It leads into the Action Radar Link and the two sound now almost like one track. It's very lenghty tonight but makes the core Action Radar bit slightly shorter, which is a bit a shame.
Memphis Bells
then - only the third time this track gets played live and it just totally works. Even if you're not so keen on this on the album, it's a great live track, especially the extra vocals by Maxim make it great.
Next on is recent re-addition to the set Hotride. I'm not sure what they've done to this, but although I never liked it much last year this is pretty good now. Again it's mainly Keith who is responsible for making this one work live.
Even better it gets with Voodoo People though. I'm really liking the new version played, the beats are brilliant and so is the vocal addition by Keith - "It's in your eyes baby!".

Audience reaction is still huge when the band are leaving the stage and shortly after they're back again with Poison and Method Beat. During the track I can see Keith down at the front walking through the audience over and over again - he looks like he wants to hug every single person in the crowd. Smack my bitch up, yet another live favourite goes down extremely well. And then, Out of Space to close the set - amazing.

I can't say enough how great this Brixton show was and must apologise for the rather short and lacking reports of the weekend - just had a bit a too good time I guess! A shout goes out to everyone i know, from the site, past shows etc I met this weekend - very good to see so many people.

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