1991.02.?? – Labrynth, London, England

The Labrynth Club

The Prodigy experience born in October 1990
and the very first PA was in Club Labrynth in February 1991 in front of about 250 people.

Over 25 years ago that energy made it’s debut with a simple PA at rave night at Labrynth Club in Dalston, (formerly named The Four Aces Club, in 1988 it transformed into Labrynth).

Most of the rave parties were based in abandoned warehouses and smaller clubs in England’s city centres.

Joe Wieczorek (in the middle) ran warehouse parties under the name of Labyrinth.

The band was very nervous and then, as if things weren’t already tense enough, the band were advised that they were actually only the second act to have played the venue; the first one apparently got bottled off. Liam and the others were terrified. The Prodigy ran through a set that lasted for eigth songs. Liam pushed his primitive keyboards, wrapping circuits around tracks that feature on his demo tape. Cuts like “Android” and “Everybody in the Place” rumbled into The Labyrinth, flowing like smoke through the PA. “The thing I remember most was Joe, the guy who ran it,” Keith recalls. “I said ‘Joe, who else has played here?’. I thought that maybe Zeppelin, the Pistols, all the mighty bands started there. He said ‘well, we don’t have bands. We did have one once but they got dragged off stage so we didn’t have any more!’.”

The band during their first performance. Photo from Leeroy’s facebook profile.

Photo by Jay Mckendry-Jenkins

Photo from Leeroy Thornhill’s book “Wildfire”.

Liam Howlett on keyboards, Keith Flint, Leeroy Thornhill and Sharky dancing with MC Maxim. In the end, a crowd of approximately 250 punters saw the debut Prodigy gig, although Liam maintains that the number was more like 500. In fact, we rocked it.

Sharky was the only female member to have been in the Prodigy live act. She left the band beginning of summer 1991. She was in touch with the band for their whole carrier. She also appeared on Voodoo People (Pendulum Remix) music video.

The Prodigy survived, though, and only a month later were playing in front of 8,000 at Raindance. “That was when we thought we were successful,” Liam remembers. “I was always there as a raver. I think it was every month. I loved it. So when we were standing on that stage it was like ‘yeah, we’ve arrived now man!’.”

“If we set out to achieve anything,” adds Keith, “THAT was it, and we’d done it. Because it was OUR people. It wasn’t just 8,000 people, it was OUR people. So instead of having a buzz out in the crowd, we was having a buzz onstage, buzzing them up… We wanted to be the best PA on the scene, the most thumping noise with the best beats and the best b-lines.”

Unfortunately The Labrynth Club has been demolished in February 2007.

Here is the first ever The Prodigy logo.

Quite likely used before they did their first ever show as Maxim’s number is not on there, he joined the band just before the first show.
The font was kept on Liam’s set up for a few of the early gigs.

Text and concept by David Starter
Italic text by Martin Roach
Proofreading and supplement by zbyniu