04/08/2009

Last night was a cultural experience in many ways, not all of them good. A good friend of mine bought me a ticket to see The Prodigy at the SECC. I was very pleased, particularly as I had missed the last Prodigy gig that I had a ticket for in 1997.(I had to be in New York, you see. It's a tough life.)
Our experiences on the way to the venue included passing a toilet que full of young fellows shouting in tongues, being searched by the police and seeing a teenage boy having his Buckfast confiscated. All would seem to be in order. The gig, predictably, drew every sort of audient one could imagine; aging pill-head ravers who were there first time around, young pill-head ravers who have since gotten the bug, rockers for whom The Fat Of The Land was their one concession to patronising dance music, unbiased music lovers like ourselves and of course a fair few complete bams there mainly to deal drugs and antagonise people. It was interesting.
The show itself was pretty good. Dizzee Rascal was a non-event, but I didn't have my hopes up. The Prodigy still have the dirty, slightly violent energy that is their stock in trade and the sound was unusually good, if slightly too loud. All in all it was like a nostalgia trip to an era that I actually missed, but have soaked up a fair bit of it's spirit since.
This, however, is really all just stage setting for what I really feel compelled to write about: The Morning After.
I was driving along the road near my house this morning and was suddenly faced with a bottleneck where there shouldn't be one. Parked brazenly on a double yellow line right before the busy junction next to One Devonshire Gardens was a large Four Seasons tour bus. Just sitting there, getting right in everyone's road, as you do when you're a big enough deal to have a Four Seasons tour bus, obviously. Having come close enough to said offending vehicle to look up and give the driver the standard annoyed look, who do you think I saw, sitting in the front seat, not a care in the world, happily getting Right In Everyone's Road? That's right. Keith Flint. The Firestarter himself, looking much less the Electro-Punk legend and much more the arrogant tit who's needlessly blocking traffic. Now, the incongruity of a self-proclaimed arsonist staying at the city's most renowned luxury hotel aside, this was just plain annoying.
So yes, I agree; invaders must die. Especially overpaid invaders in tourbuses.


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