The Prodigy @ Carling Academy, 8 Dec

Keith Flint and Maxim Reality take the stage in character, faces sneering and painted as composer and sound wizard Liam Howlett unleashes the first broken beats of Worlds on Fire, an unreleased track from The Prodigy’s forthcoming Invaders Must Die. It’s well received and sets a pace that continues throughout a set speckled with some of the greatest British dance tracks of all time. But it’s not until the cannonade of crowd favourite Poison drops late into the set and works itself into Voodoo People that the crowd really reacts, with the climactic highlight of the night arriving with a harmonious, inebriated singalong to the ever-euphoric Out of Space. The decision to start and end with new material is a little bold and perhaps diminishes an escalating atmosphere, but the Prodigy can afford to experiment – they’ve built an illustrious career with their experimental tendencies and tonight we’ve been willing subjects. [Neil Walker]