2004.11.13 – I Love Techno Festival, Gent, Belgium

Date: 13th November 2004
Event: I Love Techno Festival
Venue: Flanders Expo Centre
City: Gent
Country: Belgium
Support: see timetable

Tracklist:
1. Wake Up Intro
2. Wake Up Call
3. Their Law
4. Warning
5. Spitfire
6. Breathe
7. Girls / More Girls
8. Medusa’s Path
9. Hotride
10. Mindfields
11. Firestarter
Encore:
12. Poison
13. Smack My Bitch Up

Extra info:
Green Room timetable:
20:00 Ivan Smagghe (Black Strobe)
22:00 Felix Da Housecat
00:00 The Prodigy
01:00 Miss Kittin
03:00 Anthony Rother
04:00 Dr. Lektroluv

Review by BIEB:
It’s always great to see the Prodigy act live, I saw them 3 times: Brussels ’97, Beach Rock ’98 and Beach Rock ’02. The first time was offcourse really amazing, specialy because of it was only Prodigy playing that night! whoaaaaa! great! 20000 people enjoyed that show. The both Beach Rock editions were played for about 50000 people. Now, Prodigy planned to play on I Love Techno, the huge dance festival i visit every year. When I heard the news Prodigy was coming to I Love Techno in Gent, I didn’t believed it! My favourite band on my favourite party, only few streets away from my homeplace!!! That couldn’t be true!
But then I had a few questions. Prodigy on a techno festival? Will that work out? One music hall of the festival can contain about 5000 people, isnt that to small for Prodigy? Then I noticed on the official Prodigy site that Liam & co had chosen to play most of their tour for maximum 5000 people. Does The Prodigy wants to get a bit more ‘underground’? Like we notice that they even dont want Hotride to hit the charts, by releasing it only in a small number of copies.
Last year I Love Techno sold about 25000 tickets, but seven days before the ’04-edition they sold 27000 tickets. Only few days later I Love Techno was sold out: 35000 tickets. Reason? Prodigy!
ENTER & BREAK
13 november! Finaly the Big Day! ILT starts very soon, at 19h, and offcourse i was there. I could enter very quickly cause I had a VIP-ticket for the price of a normal one. The only thing i had to do for that was be one of the first 100 to buy a ticket. So I did 🙂
Once inside, immediatly noticed lots of Prodigy-tshirts between all the extra ordinary clothed technofans. At that moment I thought, okay this is where The Prodigy belongs: The music is about the beats and the lifestyle is about doing what you want to do!
Its 10 o clock, visited some djs but thought its time to go to the hall where the king of beats will perform. When I reached the hall, i was surpised; the hall was almost fully filled, i was a little in panic: Hope I can get in! But i managed to do so, and searched myself with my wheelchair a place where i could stand a bit to see Prodge good. Found a real good place, just in front of the light-editors. There i had a real good overview of whole the hall, cause i wa sin the middle of it, but i was doubting to go the first row. But I guess that would not have been safe for me.
The audience likes the music of Felix da Housecat who’s playing, i think as well that the music is great. He made me think of Fatboy Slim: A mix of different music stiles. I loved the dance version of Marilyn Manson’s ‘Beautiful People’. Negative not: Felix made some technical dj-faults. But I guess this was lots of better then the hiphop supporting act in Zurich on fridaynight. Now finaly time for THE PRODIGY! I’m very nervous, get out my wheely, sweat like a pig, and ready for the kick of the year!
PRODIGY ON STAGE (And NOT on stage!)
The intro and Wake Up Call make the whole place jump, and i love the track. But I notice the sound hasnt the same volume as on Beach Rock. I like it hard you know 😉 Thought the lights weren’t special too, they were not bad but I dont think they were as good as on the Athene-vids.
Wake Up Call was followed by a complete mess and lots of confused people. Prodigy left stage and the lights went on. I though FUCK! Guess Liam is not happy with something, the sound or something, and prodge is outtahere! 🙁 This was so shitty, I was pretty sure they wouldnt come back, otherwise they would not leave. Panic! After 10 minutes we heard that the people had to leave the place, but hey, offcourse nobody did. Few minutes later it was clear only few people had to leave cause of safety-reasons. To many people had entered the room. What the hell was that! ILT is known for their perfect organistion, but now they really made an big mistake. This stuff took about 30 minutes. Then Liam returned on stage. I felt a shame.
Their Law rocked the place and the half an hour ‘boooing’ was forgotten fast. This is one of my favourite tracks, and its clear everybody knows it, after all the waiting the audience gets mad! Yes! Warning is so great, people reacted surprised, but it was a matter of seconds that Warning was in full control of the 5000 fans. And it goes on and on! This one can handle the level of Firestarter.
Spitfire makes the people shout, but i’m sure they all loved Warning more. Offcourse Breathe is the first big bomb, as we know, this is always mad, the music, the lights, everything! This is what we’re here for! And off course Keith and Maxim are entertaining the audience very well! Girls / More Girls was kinda short I think, but it was recieved well. But i expected more of the lights. Once again; the lights didn’t seem to be as good as on Athene. Thats pitty, cause ILT has real nice light-installations.
Medusa’s Path is a chiller bit i like it, loving the eastern style of it and give my legs a bit of rest. Hotride, doesnt work good like Neko told us before. The track rocks but live its to weird. Now we should have The Way It Is but this track stays in Liam’s Mac on I Love Techno. Pitty cause i love it but now i’m happy with what I get after the safetyproblems.
Mindfields: Amazing live track! yeah! No further comments!
Firestarter then is the bomb of the day, its so hard, and its builds up and up and up. Firestarter live is just one of the greatest things you ever can experience. This is losing control, this is giving everything you got, using all the energy you’ve left.
Did not thought to get extra tracks cause it was already 1 o’clock for a long time, but Poison hitted us as well. The beats of this track are so nice, never noticed before that they could be that hard. I’m really suffering and having fun at the same time. I’m tired, i must sit, or enjoy the finale. What shall I do? Auch, there is Smack My Bitch Up! Juuuuuuump! 😀
When SMBU fades out really slowly, Liam, Keith and Maxim great the audience, this gives a nice feeling of respect. Prodigy give me more the I expected, they played 75 minutes (exc the problems:p) and they should have played 60 min’s so I was very very happy! I Love Techno messed it up, but The Prodigy made the night just great. I have not made photos, the outfits where the same as in Zurich and the photos of Tillate in Neko’s review are just too good!
I hoped most of the people would stay for Miss Kittin, but almost everybody left, guess everbody wanted to leave that hot room for a while. While the set begins, the room gets full again, and yes, Out Of Space made lots of people dance once again.
Did not see many acts after that, all rooms were full! I love Techno really will have to reduce the amount of tickets. But i wasn’t sad or something I could not see top technodjs. I allready had my big finale.

Review by Annemieke Koomen, Incendiary magazine:
On Saturday the 13th of November I found myself travelling down to Belgium. Well to Ghent, if you must require such detailed information and not just for any old reason – nope, I was on my way to see the Prodigy! They were playing at the Flanders Expo’s “I Love Techno” event, along a number of high profile dance acts; Felix da Housecat, Miss Kittin and Dr. Lektroluv included with Carl Cox, Dave Clarke and Milo and a host of other well known technoheads completing the line up. The event was divided into a kind of 6 room complex, each with its own colour coding and musical programme. I spent most of my time in the Green Room, A) because that’s where all the electro would be and B) because the colour green suits me so well. I made sure I was there on time as well, (You can’t find your way round Haarlem but you can get to Ghent ok? :Ed) because I wanted to check out Felix da Housecat. Well, we wouldn’t want to miss that now would we? After Felix’s set, it was time for the Prodigy.
They started in blistering fashion with a ‘Wake-up Call’ from their new album ‘Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned’; which as a true fan you should definitely have in your collection. It has a sound that is new and refreshing and I for one like it! Then, after this first song got us all warmed up and excited; the plug was pulled, the house lights were turned on and the band left the stage. What the? I swore in Dutch and English for a few minutes and was just about to lose lose my temper altogether when, after a break of about half an hour, the room went dark again and the band returned to the stage.
It wasn’t until the day after that I found out that this had happened because of there was a large number of people still trying to get in at the entrance. It was getting too crowded and therefore too dangerous. Thankfully for me, a lot of others left the green room (obviously flushing red with anger) and the band were allowed the band to return. They kicked off again with ‘Their Law’ which was a great success and the crowd started dancing, in fact everybody in the Green room was out on the floor. They played a lot of their new songs and Keith and Maxim sang them perfectly, even though they hadn’t participated on the new album’s recording. My new personal favourite is ‘Spitfire’. What a song!
Incidentally, the band looked great. Maxim had a bright white stripe across his eyes which matched the white sleeves on his top. Very coordinated.I was able to tear myself away from the crowd for a minute to replenish myself with some water (got to keep drinking!) (What, just bloody water?? :Ed) as for the first time that evening there wasn’t a queue at the bar. Unfortunately this was the moment that they began playing ‘Firestarter’ so I had to hurry back to the floor. Bugger!When the encores came around, ‘Poison’ was blasted out, followed by ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, which of course couldn’t be left out of any Prodigy set list.
The Prodigy have always seemed to be more of a rock n’ roll band than an electronic dance act to me, so I wasn’t surprised to see that they had brought a real guitarist and featured a live drummer behind a real drumkit; but despite the standard rock n’ roll equipment; one of the great things about this show was that there were only few interruptions (except for that half hour interval at the beginning of course). They didn’t talk much and kept the beats going constantly, which made it possible to dance non-stop and which is, of course, such a wonderful thing! Just like the Prodigy.

Poster: