2004.11.04 – Fermasa, Granada, Spain

Date: 4th November 2004
Event: The Prodigy Concert – AONO Tour
Venue: Fermasa
City: Granada
Country: Spain
Support: The Explosion Sound System

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. Back 2 Skool
11. The Way It Is
12. Mindfields
13. Firestarter
Encore:
14. Poison
15. Smack My Bitch Up

Extra info:
Originally advertised as being held at Palacio Municipal de Deportes de Granada but was later moved to the smaller venue of Feria de muestras de armilla without explanation.

Review by neko:
Two hours sleep after the Madrid show and early on 4th Nov we’re already at the airport again off to Malaga (which is way cheaper to fly to than Granada directly). I’m with one of my best friends from London, so it’s all a good laugh and we think we get a bit of beach and sun while down there at the south coast of Spain. We get our rental car and drive to our hotel on the coast, but are soon faced with torrential rain. Shame about that.
The place we’re staying at is some ‘popular tourist resort’ in summer, but now in November a really empty and quite shitty place (but probably better than in July with all the tourists). So quite soon in the afternoon we’re off and drive to to Granada. About 1.5h later arrive in Armilla, a small town outside Granada where the gig is supposed to take place. It sounded so easy to find the venue, but takes us over an hour to find it, as it isn’t actually in Armilla itself at all, but even further out in the out of nowhere.
We go and get some dinner, but there’s nothing much else to do, and I cannot drink either because of the driving. So it’s a bit boring and we’re looking forward to the gig now.
The venue is some huge hall, looks a bit like a gymnasium and lacks all the good vibe the Riviera the night before in Madrid had. As we get in, the place is still rather empty, which doesn’t help either. Support comes from the same DJ’s as the night before. They’re pretty cool, have a few really good bits in their set, but after about half an hour seem to run out of good tracks to play. Whereas last night in Madrid people were really into them, here everyone seems just bored and waiting for The Prodigy.
Shortly after 10pm then the lights go out and as the DJ table is being carried out the Wake Up intro already begins. Band comes on stage, Wake Up Call starts with all of them up there. We’re at the front, but although people are into them, there’s no pushing, everyone’s very polite, almost a bit too polite. Now a bit of a surprise, next on is Their Law, so looks like a change in setlist! This works of course well, but although I’m happy to have some space to dance, the audience still seems a bit too calm. Now Warning, the new post-AONO track Prodigy have been playing live for a month now, this time after Their Law though. This doesn’t make much difference, as both these tracks are just as intense and so the usually strongest tracks of the set remain at the beginning. The ending of Warning has changed though, Liam plays some different beats to finish off the track and this leads us into Spitfire. Of course Maxim is back on stage for this. At the end of the track he shouts “who in here is hot?”. No feedback. “Who in here is hot?” Still almost none, instead people stare at him confused. Only then it occurs to me that that’s probably down to the pretty huge language barrier here in Spain.
Nevermind though, another change of setlist now, Breathe is next. And this is when it all starts, people are getting into it, hugely. Finally! This is then followed by Girls / More Girls, which is rather nice today. A nice new (?) link leads then into Medusa’s Path. Towards the end then Keith comes back on stage, which marks the start of Hotride.
Now it gets interesting again. As Hotride finishes, Liam plays that ‘James Bond’ link he used to play back at the 97 shows. Then of course the new track, debuted last night. I actually need to disagree with what i wrote for the Madrid show, the beats in this track are everything else than tame! There is one bit sounding a bit like Breathe, but all else is very new. The track has a lot of build ups, then very hard beats but still sounds very much in progress. It almost sounds like most of it is improvised, with Liam providing some beats, Maxim doing the vocals – “Take you back to school (to teach you how to build guns)” – and Keith dancing along to it. Great stuff though and quite different again from last night. The most remarkable thing about this track though is that while the audience has so far reacted a bit calm towards the new AONO track, they all seem to be totally into this one, although they’ve never heard it before. Definintely a good sign.
This is followed by The Way It Is, still nice and danceable, but a bit long. Now and extended Climbatize link takes us to Mindfields. Really good performance by Maxim here, although even the band seem a bit calmer today than last night in Madrid. Firestarter then gets the usual huge responses and the band leave the stage.
The same encore as usual gets played now. Poison, again with the new ending, fades almost a bit too quickly into Smack My Bitch Up. This is a great grand finale and the audience finally wakes up completely, a little bit too late.
After Prodigy leave the stage we know it’s finished. The lights go on, filler music is played etc. But the people don’t give up. We’re off to get our car to drive back to Malaga, but 10 min after SMBU has finished, hundreds of Spanish people are still standing there shouting for more. Nice one, once more, although Madrid still remains my favourite.
We’re off back to Malaga (still torrential rain there), get to the hotel at 2am, only to order a 5am wake up call for our early flight to Barcelona … Watch this space …

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