There is no British band as influential on the dance scene as The Prodigy. Ever since their inception in 1990, they’ve been at the heart of the nation’s electronica landscape, and have enjoyed both commercial and underground success throughout the last 34 years. Commencing their Disrupta tour, the reformed group took to the East Riding of Yorkshire at Bridlington Spa.
Shortly after the doors opened, the Art Deco ballroom adorned with interiors inspired by the Italian Renaissance style lit up with vibrant, multicolour strobes – a perfect juxtaposition only dramatised by the novelty remixes delivered by supporting act, Jaguar Skills. Blending the likes of Nuxx’s ‘Born Slippy’ with Solo 45’s ‘Feed Them To The Lions’, it’s not an understatement to say that the set made people both move to and ponder what they were experiencing sonically. However, the injections of club classics into almost every track he dropped was a surefire way of warming up the 3,800-member audience for what was to come.
Swiftly following his DJ set came the moment the sea of ravers that welcomed the stage had been waiting for; The Prodigy’s return to the small coastal town after nine long years. Not a band known for easing their audience into a live set, the group immediately erupted into the hardcore classic, ‘Voodoo People’, before going a step further to pick up the pace with ‘Omen’, an instant crowd pleaser.
Their first night of the Disrupta tour also brought new additions to their setlist, providing fans who might have followed them to Reading and Leeds Festival, Isle of Wight Festival, or perhaps their ‘Army Of The Ants’ tour back in 2023, with new live material. Their latest song, ‘Fight!’, evoked an impressively strong reaction from the crowd despite being nestled in between some of the band’s most famous hits.
Throughout the entire set, vocalist Maxim kitted out in his signature face paint and vest with the word “HERO” emblazoned across it, commanded the stage with his unparalleled animation, continually labelling the energised audience as “fighters” and his “Prodigy people”. The vivid energy in the room only rose as visuals of the late frontman Keith Flint were plastered across the stage’s screen before the band erupted into their iconic hit, ‘Firestarter’.
Their delivery of classics, however, didn’t stop there. Before departing the stage for the first time, the crowd had the chance to hear some of the biggest and best tracks from their 1994 album, Music for the Jilted Generation, such as ‘Poison’ and the iconic dance track ‘No Good (Start The Dance)’ which truly united both established and emerging fans.
The encore provided a tracklist that could have satisfied the crowd entirely on its own, boasting classics like ‘Take Me To The Hospital’ to ‘We Live Forever’, the latter providing a particularly anthemic and punchy track to draw the night to its close. Ending the gig on a shortened but still vivacious performance of the rave anthem, ‘Out of Space’, the venue buzzed with an excitement that implied a desire for the night to continue beyond the four walls of the dance hall.
As the lights turned on and the band had vacated the stage, The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’ blared over the speakers, inviting gig-goers to hang around and absorb the splendour they had just witnessed. While perhaps an unusual venue to witness a band like The Prodigy play, the night felt like a sensical celebration of grassroots musical spaces, and, not least, an equal parts raucous and emotive homage to the late and great Keith Flint.
Words by Ruby Brown
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