Archive for July 26th, 2010
The Prodigy @ The National Bowl, Milton Keynes – 24/7/2010
Guest Blogger: Tina Hart
There were ants everywhere – representing the current signature logo of The Prodigy of course, as I went to witness one of the recommended ‘50 Bands To See Before You Die’ at their biggest ever gig on Saturday night.
Alongside 64,999 others, I packed into the open-air Milton Keynes National Bowl for the Warrior’s Dance Festival and you could smell the anticipation in the air, as someone in a fan forum so elegantly put it prior to the event ‘can’t wait, 65,000 nutters avin it’. Indeed.
Not just your average concert, punters were treated to a whole day of music with several support acts across the main stage and secondary Boneyard area. DJ Zane Lowe hyped up the willing crowd before the headlining act took to the stage, saying it was the best festival he’d ever played to.
Smashing the set open with World’s On Fire the crowd went mad, hands in the air, jumping up and down, as the Essex electronic dance gods hit the stage. Ambulances were hung around the set in keeping with the Take Me to the Hospital (the name of their record label) theme and the amazing light show kicked into action illuminating the Bowl.Â
The moshing started front stage as they moved into my favourite Prodigy classic, Breathe followed by the anthem that is Omen. Without being flung into the nearby mosh pit, I shouted along with my fellow ravers as the ambulances began to glow in the dark and Maxim Reality and Keith Flint egged on the audience with their familiar expletive-strewn narrative.
The bassline of Poison and Thunder dubstep remix reverberated right to my core and after affectionately getting pelted with plastic bottles from the other revellers including many a topless male, we took to the bank to soak up the atmosphere from further across the bowl, where we got to appreciate the spectacular laser display that accompanied Warrior’s Dance.
Taking us through their hits spawning two decades and five successful albums, fans ranging from freakishly young to surprisingly old, relentlessly kept the energy levels up for the hour and a half set, singing (shouting) along, dancing (raving) throughout and obediently reciting everything they were told by the two front men whilst production mastermind Liam Howlett looked on over his keyboard at the brilliant mayhem unfolding in front of him.
After Take Me to the Hospital, during the encore we were treated to some proper old school Prodigy including Everybody in the Place, No Good (Start the Dance) and Charly which went down a storm.
Rebellious Their Law led into the humongous finale that was Out of Space. We had been a ‘wicked crowd’ apparently, for which Maxim gave ‘Pure respek from the heart’ and said it was the best… night of his life. What a sweetie.
It’s not difficult to see why The Prodigy have been crowned the most influential act of their genre in a recent poll. A gig of this magnitude continues to prove why they are still held in such high regard in dance music twenty years after they first came to our attention. There’s clearly still life in the old dogs yet as Liam revealed in a recent interview with Zane Lowe that they were heading back into the studio soon to record some new material. Roll on album number six. And long live The Prodigy.
The Karate Kid – Exclusive Harald Zwart interview
by Andy Gibbons
During the recent UK premiere for The Karate Kid, I managed to grab the movie’s director Harald Zwart for a brief chat during which we discussed his leading men, the work ethic on set and honour of filming in China.
I grew up with the original Karate Kid back in 1984 so how does this bring things into the 21st century?
I think the moral of the story is the same. It’s almost spoken directly by Jackie’s character; he says ‘Life will knock you down but we chose whether or not to get back up’. That is an eternal message and an eternal story. What we’ve done is just update it a bit by making it even more of a fish out of water story by moving [the main character] to China where he’s got the language barrier and he’s being bullied at school so those are the updates we’ve done. And obviously we’re proud of the fighting in the movie.
How important was it to film in China?
I’ve always had three wishes; I’ve wanted to film with Jackie Chan, I’ve wanted to work with Will Smith and I’ve wanted to shoot in China so it was really important to me. I loved filming there, it was just too good to be true.
Jaden steals the show as Dre Parker. How did you find working him?
He was the hardest working person on the whole crew. First he had to train for months and months before we started shooting and then while we were shooting he was still training. And he had to learn Chinese and all his lines; he was working every single day.
Finally, with Jackie teaching Jaden all his movies, did you pick anything up from the Kung Fu master?
I’ve been trying to spar with him, he’s just much too fast.
The Karate Kid opens in the UK on Wednesday July 28th.
