2001.08.17 – Rock ‘Oz Arenes Festival, Avenches, Switzerland

Date: 17th August 2001
Event: Rock ‘Oz Arenes Festival
Venue: Arenes Romaines
City: Avenches
Country: Switzerland
Support: n/a

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

Extra info:
Premier performance of Army March Intro, Trigger, Little Goblin and Nuclear.
It was first gig without Leeroy.
New guitarist: Alli MacInnes

On stage also: Iggy Pop, Green Day, Frank Black and The Catholics, Lovebugs, Asian Dub Foundation, Eagle Eye Cherry, Melanie C, Matmatah, Mich Gerber, Tryo, Büne Huber, Pascal Parisot, Zorg, Hush, Chewy, Wonderspleen, Virago, Sinner DC, Honey for Petzi, Swandive, Flying Red Fish, Urbancy, Jacky Lagger, Reverend Beat-Man

Review by neko:
10.30pm ADF finish their set and their equipment is taken away from the stage while The Prodigy’s equipment is being brought onto the stage! Exciting! By that time i am also already told that there are new official Prodigy shirts being sold at the festival with a new logo on it, with a red star in the ‘o’.
Liam’s keyboards are rolled onto the stage. Looks as if he’s got rid of the Southpark stickers and instead has got a backdrop with the new Prodigy logo on a tank. The drums also have that red star painted on them and the monitors next to where the guitars will be have a coloured ant logo on them and next to them another new ‘logo’ of Prodigy which is a head with a rocket inside.
Around 11pm we’re told that there are no photos allowed at all. All cameras would be confiscated. I guess it might be because the stage is so near the audience that every flash would really confuse those poor band members. So yeh, i decide not to bother at all with photos at that gig.
At 11.30pm the lights go finally out and it seems as that the show will start soon. After two years of waiting those 30min more or less really don’t make any difference anymore. And before you can think clearly they now run on stage. First Liam behind the keyboards and Kieron behind his drums and they start the show with a brandnew intro, an army style march, consisting of a combination of live drums and and drum machine. the intro fades into a bassline and then gets funky for a second and ends with a cheesy 80’s sample (?) saying something like “I know that you and I will stay forever, forever, forever…”
Now with that sample it leads into Their Law, and at the same time the rest of the band jump on stage. Rest of the band are of course Maxim and Keith, but, surprise surprise, also a new woman on guitar! Their Law, in my opinion still the best live track in the world ever, now completely kicks off the show.
Their Law finishes and Liam starts what turns out to be a brandnew track with a (probably sampled) pianoline. Not one of those rave style piano lines, more a bit like you’d hear it played in a spoooky church. A sample comes with it going ‘one, one, one, one’ (not unlike the ‘rhythm, rhythm, rhythm’ from ‘we eat rhythm’ actually). The track is based on that pianoline, but contains very hard beats as well as lyrics by Maxim and Keith. They together shout something like “one…and the two to the three” and “one…and we shoot you in the face!” and “we pull the trigger!”. As we later find out this brandnew track is actually called Trigger. Now this track also contains the new woman on guitar and I start to realize that I know her from somewhere, she just looks very familiar.
Next on is Breathe, of course still with Maxim and Keith both on stage. New for that track is that it also contains guitar now. And now it hits me, the new guitarist on stage is indeed Alli from Fifth Amendment! Now there’s a surprise! Having seen Alli as singer of her own band Fifth Amendment before, I think she is a brilliant performer. At the same time she is not actually a ‘replacement’ for Gizz Butt, she seems to take up a completely different role in the live band. While Gizz was the extrovert guitarist, Alli is more the reserved, cool woman at the back. Brilliant!
Breathe finishes and Liam starts to play some new link, which then leads us into the beginning of Smack My Bitch Up. Alli leaves the stage but still both, Keith and Maxim, stay on the stage. After the departure of Leeroy Thornhill their roles have changed a bit and they are both now on the stage almost all of the time, which i think is a good thing. And although I hate saying this, but their constant presence on stage really fills any ‘gap’ Leeroy’s departure left behind and the show’s full of energy as ever.
It is also very easy to tell how much especially Maxim and Keith enjoy being back on the stage and Keith’s facial expressions live just come accross better than you’d remember it from any live video whatsoever. Meanwhile Liam, as ever, is of course the reserved one, behind his keyboards, concentrated, sometimes clapping his hand and jumping with his ‘kickboxing’ trousers.
After SMBU a bit of the horn sounds from Climbatize fade in and out again and Mindfields gets played. This is the first time now Keith leaves the stage and its Maxim’s turn to have the stage on his own.
After Mindfields also Keith and Alli come on stage again and another new track starts to play. As we later find out this track is called Nuclear and also has Keith and Maxim both on vocals. This track contains incredible beats and in pieces sounds a bit like a crossing of ‘Pretty Vacant’ by Sex Pistols and ‘Feel good hit of the summer’ by Queens of the Stone Age. Main theme of the song seems to be ‘action – reaction’ and Maxim and Keith sing something like “For every action, there’s a reaction” in a very rhytmical way. Also the track contains a significant guitar part and all in all leads me to the conclusion that Liam doesn’t have any intentions yet to go away from the ‘guitar sound’ and instead even takes it further. But at the same time, incredibly cool beats in that track!
Next is Poison and the very beginning sounds rather different than usually. Not quite a new version, more a tiny little mistake by Liam for once, and the beats at the start are a bit fucked up. During Poison Keith also runs down and throws one of the thrashcan filled with water into the crowd. Again this track is performed by keith and Maxim but does of course not have any live guitar.
Another new link now leads us into Firestarter. This is Keith’s solo performance now, and Maxim leaves the stage again.
The band leave the stage, just to enter a few minutes later again and play the final encore, Fuel My Fire, ending with Keith actually throwing his microphone into the audience and then leaving.
So that was it then, 60 minutes – intense and short and just …. BRILLIANT!
This is more than just a gig, it is indeed Prodigy’s comback, and the therefore the moment we have been waiting for for ages now! YESSS! They ARE back!
After the gig we now also meet up with Damon, some crazy Prodigy fan from the States who has come all the way from California to make it to those shows, so we’ve offered him to drive with us to the show in Germany.

Poster:

T-shirt:

Photos from the show:

Backstage: