The Prodigy, Live in Brisbane!

TOUR SOME MORE: Our first of many architecture tours was today. We’re starting to feel the routine of it – but it’s still interesting. Brisbane, like every other Australian city, is a port city. It’s built inland on a river that is quite curvy. This makes the city hard to navigate if you try to reference your position by the river.

Unlike other Australian cities, timber is abundant here and thus most of the residential houses are built of wood unlike the common sandstone structures in Sydney. To avoid having to level land, most of the houses are on stilts too, much like you would see in a town on the east coast that regularly dodges hurricanes.

We do get to see a neat art museum. One piece that stands out is a sculpture that reminds people where the high water line is for floods – it’s the word “Flood” but it’s built to look like the cement is coming up over the sculpture. Of course, we climb on it and take pictures being the mature adults we are.

Josh and I get yelled out for talking on the bus while the professor is trying to lecture. Oh well.

When we get back from the tour, I take a nap, eat dinner, then go looking for someone to accompany me to the Prodigy concert that night. Tyler finally agrees to tag along, being a fan of the music.

PRODIGY!! The venue is called “The Arena Complex”, which to me sounded like a nice big place where there will be a huge crowd. Should be nice, I figured. When we arrive at the place, I was quite surprised to learn that the Arena was in fact, not an Arena by any stretch o the word, but a large bar capable of holding about 1500 people. For this kind of concert, this would be extremely cool.

Unfortunately for us, the show was sold out, so we came prepared with Aussie Bucks to look for some scalped tickets. After a few minutes of nagging people as they went by, two large, intimidating, drunk, jolly guys offer a ticket to us. After some brief haggling, I couldn’t get the guy under $100AU, so finally accepted his ticket. He promises to buy me a drink inside too, which was nice of him.

Now, it was time to get Tyler a ticket. We ask around for tickets for another 10 minutes, when someone finally directs us to a fellow standing down the street wearing a bookbag. We approach the guy, who was looking conspicuously nonchalant. I was instantly creeped out by this guy, because he talked in a low, monotone voice, made excessive eye contact, and made unnecessarily long pauses in the conversation. We finally get a ticket out of the guy, and we were set to go in.

The inside of the place was relatively tiny. The dancefloor was approximately 30 feet square, and an upper balcony ran around the room. The total floor area of the place wasn’t much larger than that of a basketball court. Now, imagine a sound system that stretched to the ceiling. By my educated estimates, it was at least a 50,000-watt system. Adam Freeland was the opening DJ, of whom I’m a big fan. This guy was real good, and he got the crowd going with some of his tunes. He randomly mixed in “Song 2” by Blur, which really got people excited. After he got us good and sweaty, he finished his set, and the stage hands clambored on stage to revel the Prodigy set behind the curtain.

First off, I wasn’t expecting much more than a pair of turntables and couple of MC’s jumping around yelling at us. I couldn’t be more wrong. As the curtain dropped away, I was stunned to see an entire setup more complicated than most rock bands. An elaborate drum set, two guitars, a bass, and some mic stands surround a futuristic console of 5 keyboards, 2 computers, and a bevy of miscellaneous equipment.

Apparently, you can play electronic music completely live. I did not know this.

A minute-long build up intro played to get every into the mood, and the band marched out on stage. The band itself dressed in usually wacky-musician with crazy hair attire.

But first, a word about Prodigy’s music. It is the definition of pure hard energy. A typical Prodigy song is like a workout—it warms you up, slams you into a constant frenzy, holds you there ‘till you’re exhausted, gives you a little break, then lays it on again. Liam Howlett, the man behind the music, manages to pull this off nearly every song without using the same song over again is beyond me.

So, knowing this, my expectations were quite high by this point after seeing the set. I wasn’t disappointed. As the first song rose to its crescendo and slammed into it’s full energy, it hit me like a freight train and I couldn’t do anything but dance. The sound was deafening but crystal at the same time, and the lights were blinding and in perfect sync to the music. The total package made the entire room explode into dancing/jumping/whatever you have it and was amazing. And this was the opening song.

Prodigy has high expectations of its fans, and we had to work hard to keep up with them. I was completely soaked by the fourth song, and exhausted by the time they wrapped up the set. They played songs off their new CD, as well as their classics – Firestarter, Breathe, Smack my Bitch Up, and more. At the end, I couldn’t handle anymore as I was exhausted, dehydrated, soaked, and every last bit of euphoria in me spent into the air. It had been only an hour and half. What a rush.

Simply put, this was and probably will be the best concert I have ever been to. It’s unfortunate this group doesn’t have plans to currently tour the states, but if you ever have the opportunity to see these guys live, don’t pass it up no matter how much it costs.

Afterwards, we mustered up some energy, got cleaned up, and went out for a bit. Nothing much came of that, but it was fun still.

Sorry I’m posting this out of order, but I had to get it down before I forgot it. The older entries are still coming, promise!

--P