The Prodigy live in Sydney: A masterclass in chaos

February 14, 2025

We sent our dream team Chloe & Adam Davis-Powell to attend the show on Thursday, February 13th at The Hordern Pavilion, here are their review and photos:

Setting the perfect tone for the night, Moktar brought a dynamic fusion of old school hip-hop classics, seamlessly weaving in later elements of techno, dirty bass, and his signature Arabic infusions. His set, driven by masterful sampling and production, delivered a powerful, genre-blending experience. A DJ and producer who knows how to ignite the dance floor, Moktar was the ideal choice to get the crowd hyped and ready for the night ahead.

The Prodigy, returning to Sydney after six years, transformed their Sydney performance last night into a galactic warfare of sound. Straddling the line between electronic music and outright sonic rebellion. From the moment Howlett and Maxim took the stage, it was clear this was going to be a full-scale auditory riot.

The Prodigy has always been a musical contradiction. They’re a rave act that punk rockers swear by, a band that took the aggression of metal and translated it into dancefloor destruction. Their music doesn’t just live in nightclubs or festival main stages—it demands movement, pulling the crowd into a relentless vortex of distorted synths, breakbeats, and menacing vocals. And that’s exactly what last night delivered. Head banging, throwing your body about, beautiful, chaos.

Their setlist was a precision strike of their most unrelenting tracks, each one detonating with brutal efficiency. “Voodoo People” still sounds like a high-speed chase through a dystopian cityscape, “Breathe” seethes with that snarling, claustrophobic energy, and “Smack My Bitch Up” (a track still debated for its provocation…) remains one of the most gut-punching drops in dance music history. The moment the first notes of “Firestarter” hit, a wave of emotion crashed over the crowd—Keith Flint’s absence is a wound that will never fully heal, yet his legacy looms large.

The Sound That Never Ages

For a band that emerged in the UK rave explosion of the early ‘90s, The Prodigy should, by all logic, be sound dated. It should feel like a relic of the past. And yet, they simply don’t. Their music has always been about intensity, about the collision of genres and raw energy, and that intensity remains as fresh and visceral as ever.

Howlett’s production is key to this. His beats don’t just hit—they pummel. The low-end of The Prodigy’s sound is what separates them from every other electronic act: it’s layered, distorted, absolutely violent in its execution.

Tracks like “Invaders Must Die” and “Omen” proved that even in the post-Flint era, their music still has the power to shake a venue to it’s very foundations.

Maxim, the ever-commanding ringmaster of this chaos, was a true force of nature. His guttural, barked vocals don’t just serve as a call to action—they dictate our movement. Watching him prowl the stage, arms outstretched like a preacher summoning the apocalypse, you are drawn right back to the first time you may have seen The Prodigy live – feeling young and electric. At nearly 60 years old, he has double the raw energy than most frontmen half his age.

A Cross-Generational Riot

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about The Prodigy’s live show is its ability to unite such a wide audience. Last night, the crowd wasn’t just die-hard ‘90s ravers reliving their youth—it was a generational mix of punks, techno heads, metal fans, and hip-hop and heavy bass kids, all bound together by the sheer force of the music. The Prodigy has never belonged to just one scene. Their music has always been an open challenge to genre purists, a defiant middle finger to musical boundaries.

Liam Howlett once said in an interview: “We’re not here to make friends with the music industry. We’re here to blow people’s fucking heads off.”

Mission accomplished. Long live The Prodigy.