Date: 20th October 2005
Event: The Prodigy Concert – Their Law Tour
Venue: Liseberghallen
City: Gothenburg
Country: Sweden
Support: DJ Tom Collins
Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Dead Ken Beats
3. Wake The Fuck Up
4. Their Law
5. Hotride (El Batori Mix)
6. Breathe
7. Spitfire
8. Back 2 Skool
9. Firestarter
10. Action Radar Link
11. Warning
12. Gun Reprise Fill
13. Climbatize Link
14. Voodoo People
Encore:
15. Poison
16. Method Beats
17. Smack My Bitch Up
18. Out Of Space
Extra info:
Interview with Kieth before the gig:
Neko: When you started touring again a year ago it was probably a bit different than usual, because Liam wrote Always Outnumbered pretty much on his own’
Keith: Correct. But I’ve been there throughout his process, well not entirely but sort of I got the tunes when they were ideas and then maybe when they were at the next stage with the vocal on or as a more complete piece of music. So I sort of felt like I’d known some of the pieces for some time anyway, so it wasn’t like suddenly there was an album and I had to get with it. It didn’t feel alien, it still felt like a Prodigy process, it was just that I wasn’t going to be on the album as far as like doing vocals etc. So it wasn’t like I’ve been there when the Experience was being written, so it was no different to that, in some respects.
Neko: So how was it for you to adapt to this material?
Keith: To be honest it was an exciting process to… you know because it was different, we knew we were going out on tour and that these were the tracks that were taking us there. So to start again, to work on them tracks and just the whole momentum starting… what it takes… suddenly you’re talking to Fairsie [band tour manager] everyday and Mike Champion [band manager], Liam is ringin’ about this and saying ‘oh I just had a thought about that’ and I am saying ‘should I do this or should I do that?’. You feel the energy and the momentum of the band starting again.
So it is actually quite exciting. But even if I didn’t like any of the tracks on the album or I didn’t like the tracks that I was going to get behind like Hotride etc… We went in and did Warning. That for me was exciting because it started the process. I love doing Hotride more than any other track at the moment. I love doing it like nothing else, so it doesn’t matter to me that I didn’t do the original vocal on there, not in the slightest. At the end of the day it is not an ego thing being in the Prodigy. We are sort of really powerful sort of driven people grown very stubborn and very think what we want to think and do what we want to do but there is no time for ego. You just got to get up there and join the forces and become fighters.
Neko: Do you think the whole process is easier now that you’ve been touring again for a year and spent more time together?
Keith: I think it is much easier to write, because everything seems to be written ultimately to go on stage, so sort to be fresh off the stage with that hunger to be back on it, it is so much easier than to be reflecting what it was like to be on the stage. Certainly when we were writing the last album there was a bigger period that we ever had off. To be away is hard work when it is what you do and it is your life. There is never a non-Prodigy day; I am always in the Prodigy. It is always a Prodigy day and then other bits happen. Every day, every minute is dedicated to it. It is like you’re on call out all the time. Whatever happens ‘ I might not even be at my own funeral if a gig gets booked up, it is in my will that I get taken in the coffin to the gig and I have to get propped up in the corner and then I can be buried. That is what people don’t realize, everything you do, every minute when you’re partying till midday the next day you’re making sure you still have some energy left for the next show. Every time you think of a word or a phrase you write it down in case it becomes lyrics or something.
Neko: When you had the long break, did you miss all that?
Keith: Oh yeah, like nothing else. After 8 years of touring we were kind of needing it, because we were fuckin’ battered. You’d have to have done it to understand it, cause the preconception what being in the band is all about, you know shaggin’ birds, doing drugs and whatever. And that there is a teleporter that gets you around the world, you don’t have to get on the flight, you don’t have to spend 2 hours at one airport, 3 hours in a car. As if everything magically happens around you at the highest level. They don’t see the shit hotels that you’re staying in with cockroaches and then they bring you up some mouldy old shit to eat. People think it is this massive glamour; the glamour is the tightness of the band and the fun of making every situation work for us. Yeah it is mega things that you do. We always make the best of it. We do have fun and we do party and we do rock on.
So we needed that time off first, and then suddenly it wasn’t just time off. It was time to start that momentum going, but because it was such a tidal wave, it was like stopping a tsunami and then having to somehow shake the earth again to get it going. It is fucking hard work. For me I am pretty useless to myself, I need to be driven by something. This is my life this is my therapy, without this I am just self destructive and just fucking mental. I am useless to myself for myself. This is what drives me. And I can’t do things that I am told to do. It is very rare for me to have this sort of dedication, or this love for something, this very one thing. That is not what I do.
[The door opens and Liam steps in with a glass of champagne ‘ takes a sip and goes ‘aaaaaah’ – and leaves again]
That is not part of my make up. It is probably the only thing I have ever cherished so I am not going to fuck this up.
Neko: You also had a band called Flint, and Razor got used on the Singles album
Keith: That’s right
Neko: how did it evolve into the Prodigy track?
Keith: Obviously Liam knows the album, he listened to it, we’d discussed it and he just really loved it, loved the song, loved what it was about. He was really into it, he wanted to use it, he wanted to turn it into a Prodigy track. I was like ‘yeah man lets do it lets rock on’. He did and it worked. We did it live a few times and we dropped it from the set but it certainly stood up on the record. Yeah I was buzzing about that. I am looking forward to writing new tracks; I am really up for it at the moment. The energy is there and we’re ready to go!
Neko: You’ve also got a track called Warning, which you’ve played for a year now.
Keith: Something like that is probably – due to the internet and blah di blah – tracks like Nuclear and Trigger, they’ve been raped. I don’t know, depends, but Warning might never be anything other than what it is at the moment. Which is cool, I enjoy doing it, I love doing I actually I really do. Unfortunately they are good songs that never get the chance to develop into album tracks. Once they are out in their sort of rawer form they seem to burn out quickly, they never get the chance to evolve.
Neko: Do you think that’s because they’re out on the Internet?
Keith: I do because the Prodigy used to be about – sometimes you have to be careful with stuff like that. It is a good medium for keeping in touch and serving the people that keep you going ‘ But the band used to, Liam would use to write a track, and I would beg him to play it even though he thought it wasn’t ready yet. Then when he dropped it he was like ‘yeah I need to do this to it’, and he’d drop it and be like ‘I need to do this’ and drop it again and then it would be ready. But now you can’t do that because people are going ‘oh the beats don’t sound right and Keith doesn’t sound like he is doing that’. Noone fucking gives it a chance. It is like what do you want, new shit or …. you know what I mean? That perfectionism that we have doesn’t allow us to put out second hand stuff… Not second hand but you know. It is not good if something is being recorded very badly on a mobile phone that also isn’t finished. The Prodigy has got to blow your speakers up and that won’t happen if it is being recorded on a Sony-Ericsson.
Neko: You are also bringing back some older live stuff into the set, are you enjoying that?
Keith: I love what Liam has been doing with old tracks. That could be the next album. It just shows Prodigy don’t write songs for DJs. They are not disposable songs that are just there to be played by some DJs standing on front of the stage going ‘yeah I am the bollocks’! They are proper timeless tracks. They stand out. You’d think I’d be fucking bored with them but as soon as they come on I am like ‘fucking hell this is the bomb!’ I really respect that, it just shows what a genius he is.
Neko: So what can we expect from the ‘Their Law’ tour?
Keith: For me I’d say expect Prodigy. On fire, tight, in action. Every country we go to we do an interview while we’re there and everyone is like ‘what should we expect from the show tonight?’. It is like this isn’t Britney Spears ‘The Cadillac tour’ or ‘The Popcorn tour’ or ‘The Lollipop tour’ where everyone dresses up in like lollipops with 3000 marching band and a sparkling chandelier. We are a band that just goes out there and rocks it, drops as many thumping tunes as we can. It has got to sound fucking mega. It is the people who bring the energy and the vibe. It is the vibe really isn’t it. It doesn’t matter how many glitter balls you have up there, they don’t make a good show do they? They are just made in a factory whereas The Prodigy isn’t. It is nothing to expect, I am sorry it is not that we don’t give a shit, but there is just going to be 5 people on the stage, Rob, Kieron, myself, Maxim and Liam and that is it. We’re going to rock our fucking socks off, give a 110% and sweat our fucking nuts off and do it until we’re fucking sick and give everything! And the more we get back the more we will give. And it will sound fucking nuts, it will be loud and it will be thumping. And that is all I can promise. People always bring the energy, so bring that and we’ll have some fun.
Neko: You’ve gone through different eras with the different albums ‘ do you have a particular favourite time in the last 15 years?
Keith: No not really. I must admit, I never read anything, I’ve got no memorabilia, I don’t collect anything, I don’t take photos. I am just like…. my last memory is the last show. It is not cause I don’t give a shit, I do give a shit, I’d fight to death for the band and for the people in it 100% but I am not memorabilia man. I just look to the next thing. I love every minute of it, each part of it is the most special time and the most special thing ever, but it is a progression and everything progresses. If you dwell on too much you don’t look forward… you become kind of bit slowed down… I don’t know I didn’t put that right into words. I just keep moving on, I am excited about the next album. That is it. I put on all the albums, I love them all. I think they are all mega. Each album, each era and each part is very much different and very much unique. I still live each day like it is the last and that is it. You never know where you stand. You’re only as good as your last show
Neko: A question I asked all three of you, in the Voodoo People video you did, what’s in the bag?
Keith: It is for people to make up their own mind. I think it is the demos for the next album.
Neko: Are you working on that?
Keith: Yeah we are. We’ve got like 4 tracks done, there is plenty of music, loads and loads of music there. 4 tracks is not for another 8, 12 and maybe you got an album. That is 4 tracks out of 30 or 40 we got to write, that is how you get to pick a good album. It is not here but it is on its way. And the people involved are hungry to do it. They’ve got the passion and the drive. It has been a good year for us, a lot of energy and fire breathed into the band, so we’re ready to go. Everything seems at a really good point at the moment, you know a really good feeling, so it is on it is way. It won’t be 7 years, that I do know.
interview by Andrea Schnepf aka neko – Gothenburg 20th October 2005
Tracklist:
Photos from the show:
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