SHOW REVIEW: Friendly Fires, Kentishtown Forum (31/4/09)

Spark Me Up

Thursday 31st April 2009
The Kentishtown Forum

Friendly Fires are relatively new to the scene so to sell out The Kentishtown Forum is nothing to sneeze at. The album they’ve produced is great, with good dance beats, funky guitars and nice melodies and harmonies in the vocal department. I’d seen them blow everyone off stage earlier in the year at the NME Awards with a Brazilian carnivale and exploding confetti rendition of ‘Jump In The Pool’, so this was their time to shine with a whole set to themselves.

Their stage presence was larger than expected with various risers full of saxophones, trumpets, keyboards, percussion and the 3 main players - Ed Mac, Jack Savidge and Edd Gibson. Essentially they’re a 3 piece so I was excited at the prospect of seeing them with a bit of oomph behind them, but unfortunately the oomph failed to hit the spot. The songs are great and the crowd was pumping but as of yet they only have one full album. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a new band with so much hype behind them so no doubt the lack of material will soon be rectified. Their renditions of ‘Skeleton Boy’, ‘On Board’ and ‘Strobe’ were stand out’s, as well as crowd favourites ‘Jump In The Pool’ and ‘Paris’.

However there’s no denying that this band are young, inexperienced and short of tunes as it showed. The set had no flow, no direction and was at times halting and mood breaking. The lead singers dancing and the bands overall enthusiasm are great factors and with more touring and material they will be one of Britain’s stand out acts in no time at all. But tonight came across as a hurried, unplanned, mismatch of songs that left us all high, dry and wanting more. I have no doubt they’ll be able to deliver it, it’s just a question of when.

SHOW REVIEW: The Prodigy, Brixton Academy (18/4/09)

Survival Of The Fittest
Saturday 18th April 2009
Brixton Academy

Greeted with ‘Dizee Rascal has cancelled due to illness’ notifications we made our way through the doors of Brixton with less than happy faces. The fact he’d played a sold out O2 Arena the previous night and probably just had a hang over made the announcement all the more disappointing. Nevertheless the line up for the night remained stellar – Kissy Sell Out, Chasing Status and of course, The Prodigy – so we carried on through to quench our thirsts and boogie.

As you may know I have worked at Brixton for over 6 months so it may surprise you to hear I’ve never been to the venue as a punter. So with Prodigy being my first ever attended gig it was somewhat of a baptism of fire. Having worked 2 Prodigy Christmas shows last year I was well aware of how hectic a night it can be, but was nowhere near prepared for experiencing it on ‘the other side’ (please refer to ‘Creatures of the Night: Lesson 1 - http://sistersin-creaturesofthenight.blogspot.com/) . Walking into the foyer and through to Ra Bar was almost enough to make me turn around and flee. There were people everywhere – and I mean EVERYWHERE! The lines at all bars were nothing short of monumental and navigating through to each one was akin to being in a human washing machine.

Cutting our losses we grabbed a water from the kiosk and made our way down front to review the situation, and thankfully were pleasantly surprised. Everyone was rushing to get their drinks in before Prodigy leaving the front of stage area relatively roomy, so we decided to stake our claim and stay put. From what we could gather Kissy Sell Out’s set had been lengthened due to Dizee being a Rascal, and I won’t lie, I wasn’t impressed. I love these guys on record – ‘Her’ and ‘Let There Be Blazing Light’ are 2 excellent dance tracks and if I ever heard them live I’d cut a hole in a rug deep enough to hit China. But I’ve seen Kissy twice now – once at Glastonbury and then tonight – and never have either been played. What we were given before Prodigy was a set of mistimed, mismatched, badly cut tracks with a few solid anthems in between. Apologies to Kissy Sell Out if it wasn’t them as no amended line up was posted, but if it was I was sorely disappointed.

And then they came. 10 minutes early and as prolific as ever. They haven’t changed one bit in the 15 years I’ve been listening to them. Everything was loud. Everything was dirty. Everything was Prodigy. It’s hard to put on paper what this act means to many. To me they represent a time when I appreciated dance music without the lifestyle enhancements that come along with it these days. And as a teenager dreaming of England, to see Prodigy at Brixton Academy with 5,000 peaking Brits… awesomely quintessential. One of the finest memories I have of Brixton is working a Prodigy after party in the Ra Bar and watching everyone go crazy, dancing uncontrollably to ‘He’s Ebeneezergood’ (or whatever that song was called), and I hate that song!

‘Their Law’, ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, ‘Voodoo People’, ‘Firestarter’, ‘Out Of Space’ and a fine selection of new tracks – the list goes on and on – I’ve no need to tell you (if you’re on FB check out my awesome videos: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/?id=501673841). Liam is still the mad scientist and master of all blasting basslines, beats and electronic mayhem. Leeroy is still fit, fine and crazy-eyed as ever. And Keith, well we all know Keith – he’s the fire starter. And according to my friend Kelly the only 40+ man who can pull off tight red leather trousers, and I agree. Then there’s the over shadowed drummer and guitarist who can actually keep up with them all. Those two deserve medals, without a doubt.

Keith and Leeroy’s constant shout-out’s to those in the pit goes to show they’ve not forgotten where they came from and know most of these hard cores have been there from the beginning. And after seeing tonight’s efforts I deem being in a Prodigy pit not unlike being in a death metal circle or even heading off to war. They make you lose all sense of control and dance like your life depends on it, driving harder and faster and making you forget there’s anything else. And then they were gone.

It was over. Everyone collapsed on the floor, scrambled for shoes, clothes, brains and any kind of liquid refreshment they could ingest. Chasing Status had the daunting task of following them and playing until 3am but they did a damn fine job. It’s hard to imagine anything could follow mayhem like that but they did it, and they did it well with fine drum and bass, jungle beats and just enough rhymes slapped on top to keep the bulk of the crowd cheering at The Academy until closing (plus they had nowhere else to go as the Victoria Line was down – how unusual). And to be honest a bit of drum and bass and jungle came as sweet relief after what Prodigy put us through.

I hereby surrender. It’s over. I’m done.

Take
Me
To
The
Hospital.