Little John's Farm, August 24: the dance titans return to a festival that’s always felt like home, and are determined to honour the late, great Keith Flint “After losing Keith,” the Prodigy ’s Liam Howlett told NME earlier this week , “we couldn’t even think or talk about the band.” It was, he explained, around “two years” before he and vocalist Maxim could even face the prospect. And even then they wondered, “‘Could we play live again? Did we want to? Why? How?’” The ‘why’, it seems, if that this gloriously unhinged, carnivalesque rave-up is a kind of living, breathing tribute to late vocalist and frenetic vibes man Keith Flint , who tragically took his own life in 2019 .
This is made explicit during Flint’s anthem ‘Firestarter’: screens on either side of the stage depict his unmistakeable, Devil-horned silhouette in neon green, with lazers beamed out into the audience as though he continues to cast his spell. Howlett and Maxim remix track to slow down Flint’s lyric, “ I’m the starter! ”, an immortal line if ever there was one. The Prodigy at Reading Festival 2024.
Credit: Andy Ford/NME And then there’s the ‘how’. Reading & Leeds ’ new Chevron dance stage , replete with a canopy that glitches, flickers and pulses with flashing lights and even the band’s insidious insect logo, is the perfect platform for their return a festival that, Howlett told NME , has always felt like home. The stage, meanwhile, is like a steam-punk s.