2015.11.27 – Manchester Central, Manchester, England

Date: 27th November 2015
Event: The Prodigy Concert – The Day Is My Enemy Tour
Venue: Manchester Central
City: Manchester
Country: England
Support: Public Enemy

Tracklist:
1. Breathe
2. Nasty
3. Omen
4. Wild Frontier
5. Firestarter
6. Roadblox
7. Rok-weiler
8. The Day Is My Enemy
9. Weather Experience
10. Voodoo People
11. Get Your Fight On
12. Run With The Wolves
13. Everybody In The Place
14. Invaders Must Die
15. Diesel Power Beats
16. Smack My Bitch Up
Encore:
17. No Good (Start The Dance)
18. Their Law
19. Wall Of Death
20. Take Me To The Hospital

Extra info:
Medicine was replaced by Diesel Power Beats and Beyond The Deathray was replaced by Weather Experience.

Review by Lucy Roue:
A ripple of nervous energy passes through the packed crowd at Manchester Central.
Public Enemy have just finished a hip hop master performance, with a poignant ‘minutes silence’ for the victims of the Paris attack, and the American beats are quickly subsiding to make way for the strobe-lighted electronic chaos that is The Prodigy.
A mix of ages and expectations – we are impatient for the onslaught to begin, willing Liam, Keith and Maxim to burst on stage full of their intoxicating mix of energy and anger.
“Are all my warriors here tonight?” asks rapper Maxim. The tribal shouts and frantic waving suggests they never left.
Opening with the ferocious likes of Breathe and Omen the electro-punk Firestarters, which started out 25 years ago in Essex, sound as sharp and cutting as ever.
“It’s all about the sound having that sense of danger. That’s what The Prodigy sound is about,” says Liam. And Manchester is not left disappointed.
Frontman Keith and Maxim keep the frantic energy at full throttle as they throw themselves into material.
Described as ‘mind melting’, the sixth studio offering is the sound of the hidden city. It talks of drones and chaos as we live in the shadows of ‘the anaesthetized and over-stylized urban landscape.’
To me it sounds unrelenting, raw and unapologetic – it is Prodigy once again ram-raiding the back doors of popular culture and putting two fingers up at the over-idolised Ibiza dance culture.
“We’re proud of our roots and we can not be lumped in with the f*****g formula dance music by numbers crew.”
Back to the performance and the crowd are lapping up the new material, which is lucky considering they released a new expanded edition of the album last week, packed with a mega 36 tracks.
However, I hold out for the more traditional dance sound of 2009’s Invaders Must Die.
The trancy start of No Good gives me instant goosebumps, conjuring up memories of a previous Leeds Festival performance where they were just as explosive.
Testament to their ever-youthful appearances they don’t tire, they keep the dialogue up and the audience energised as they switch the tempo with tracks like Voodoo People and an Out of Space teaser.
It may be a quarter of a century since The Prodigy rose to the forefront of British electric dance music but they still know how to unleash enough noise to have us raving like tomorrow may never come.

Review by Patrick Davies:
It’s fair to say massive arena tours don’t seem to come under Far Out’s remit all that often, but when faced with a double bill featuring two indisputable legends of the game such as this, we just had to be there.
There aren’t many acts that could pull off the coup of persuading Chuck D, Flava Flav and current DJ, Lord, to play understudies for the evening, but the way The Prodigy continue to rock every venue they visit to its core with a frenzied confidence is truly unrivalled.
Public Enemy take to the stage at 7.45 and as ticket holders are frisked by security staff on entry, a huge queue can be seen snaking hundreds of yards down the road.
The room is packed to the rafters by the midpoint of their support set, however, making the poignancy of their minute’s silence for the Paris attacks and their call to “fuck racism and separatism” all the more powerful.
At times it’s a strange mix between serious and cheesy and Flava’s impassioned rallies sit alongside medleys of riffs by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana and The White Stripes.
But all in all you will struggle to find a better opener to kick off your Friday night party.
In all honesty though, it takes a matter of seconds after we see Keith Flint bound onto the stage to launch into a visceral opener of ‘Breathe’ to realise that the ride we are about to be taken on will blow everything else out of the water.
Last year’s The Day Is My Enemy saw the trio prove that – despite six years between album releases – they are not only as consistent but also incessant as they have always been.
At a time when popular electronic music has become plagued by deep house with no personality and a style that far surpasses any kind of message, it’s encouraging to know that we still have Flint, Howlett and Maxim to give the world the shake it so badly needs.
As Flint leaps up and down during ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Roadblox’ it seems inconceivable that he’s 46. The trademark peroxide double mohawk and ghoulish eyeliner make him look identical to the former’s iconic 1997 video.
The set is a healthy mix between the old and new – a factor that suits a crowd which ranges from reformed middle-aged ravers out for a rare night of reliving their youth, right through to first timers who must have been born almost a decade after The Prodigy initially shattered our airwaves with Experience.
A reimagined rendition of ‘Everybody in the Place’ precedes a frantic ‘Invaders Must Die’, before the main set comes to a side-splitting crescendo of euphoria with ‘Smack My Bitch Up’.
The phrase ‘by halves’ has never been anywhere near The Prodigy’s ethos, and so again proves the case in Manchester with a bumper encore that pummels an infatuated crowd with ‘Their Law’, ‘No Good’, ‘Wall of Death’ and ‘Take Me to the Hospital’ followed by a mass-singalong outro of ‘Out of Space’. Formidable.

Poster: