2001.08.24 – Lowlands Festival, Biddinghuizen, Holland

Date: 24th August 2001
Event: Lowlands Festival
Venue: Walibi World (known also as “Six Flags Holland”)
City: Biddinghuizen
Country: Holland
Support: see timetable (picture)

Tracklist:
1. Army March Intro
2. Their Law
3. Trigger
4. Breathe
5. Little Goblin
6. Smack My Bitch Up
7. Climatize Link
8. Mindfields
9. Nuclear (v.2)
10. Firestarter
11. Poison
12. Fuel My Fire

Extra info:
Alpha tent timetable:
16:30 Hooverphonic
18:30 Tricky
20:30 Muse
22:30 Prodigy
23:30 Joep & Mad Ed

Review by neko:
Its a relief when Muse are finally finished, most of the little screaming girls are leaving, and the stage is being prepared for The Prodigy now, with the usual ‘ceremony’ of a curtain being put up in front of Liam’s keyboards while a roadie (no not Liam himself – which would explain the curtain) is soundcheicking the keyboards. All the memories from last week’s gigs come up again and of course the whole excitement is back again.
As Prodigy enter the stage punctually at 10pm, the tent is completely filled with overheated people. Apperently even outside the tent people are trying to get inside, or trying to ‘watch’ the gig. Same as last week, first Liam Howlett and Kieron Pepper start the new intro. The army marsh bit is said to be sounding a bit like the A-team theme. If it is from exactly there, I am not sure. Some people have discussed that they believe the sample at the end of the army marsh intro going ‘you and me, forever, and ever, and ever’ is from the Kinks’ song ‘all day and all of the night’, but i believe the sample could indeed be taken from a cover version of that track.
Now the rest of the band, Maxim, Keith Flint and Alli, jump on stage and kick off Their Law. It’s a very euphoric atmosphere in the tent, although you can hardly move anymore at the front. Their Law is brilliant as opening track. But just at the end of the track, suddenly the whole music stops, at first I think it’s a mistake by Liam, but then realize there must be some failure. The whole band now leaves the stage and everything goes quiet and quite dark. First people keep on cheering for more, but then obviously the audience has no idea what is happening and start to become impatient. After a couple of minutes finally some guy comes on stage and talks to the audience in Dutch. My neighbour explains me that he is talking about a power failure, but that they are ‘working on it’. Those things happen, kinda ruin the gig but nothing you can do about it as a band. It reminds me a bit of when I saw The Prodigy a few years ago at a festival in France where they performed on the second stage, also a tent, and had to interrupt the show due to a power failure and thunder storms for over 40 minutes!
After about 20 minute the band come back and continue the set with Trigger. The ‘one, one, one’ sample gets forgotten completely and there is no live guitar anymore for this track. The performance now seems a bit rushed to me, and at this point no one is too much into it anymore, during the whole Trigger song you can feel that most of the audience are still confused about the break and dont pay too much attention to the fact that new Prodigy material is being performed on stage!
Next on is Breathe, and for that track the band is joined again by Alli on live guitars. This is followed by the new link, a very downtemp fill with dark beats. At this gig completely instrumental, just with Maxim and Keith making weird moves on stage. Sounds almost a bit like the evil brother of Molotov Bitch. Familiar beats start, and its of course Smack my Bitch Up. Just as with Breathe, this is one of the commonly recognized tracks and the audience is going crazy.
Climbatize link is next, followed by Mindfields. Again this is Maxim’s solo performance while Keith uses the time to spit some water into the audience.
Ten thousands of people are pushing towards the front now, and in that ‘corner’ we are, you sometimes almost can’t breathe anymore. My friend AnnBritt is so crushed now, she has to be pulled out from the audience just during the starting sounds of Nuclear. I stay at the front and am a bit confused now that Nuclear still sounds exactly the same as last week, although there is no live guitar at all anymore.
Unlike at the other gig, this track is followed by Firestarter. Of course widely recognized by all the people and getting far more reaction from the audience than the two new tracks together. Poison follows afterwards, and, without leaving the stage for an encore, the band end the gig with Fuel my Fire. Does seem as if they had to rush it a bit now because of the power failure before.
The gig is finished, and although i am not dissapointed with it, i am not really all that excited about it either. Heat, rush, power failure have managed to make this gig my probably least favourite one of the four on this tour.

Poster: