23rd August 1997 Event In The Tent, Glasgow Green, Glasgow, Scotland

Report by Herald Scotland:
Had I been in po-faced rock-sociologist mode on Saturday night, I could bore you now with a series of long and learned musings about the cyclical nature of the pop process. I might pontificate earnestly about the paradigmatic adoption by the Prodigy’s Keith Flint of ex-Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten’s nasal Cockney whine, spiked carrot-top hair, and tattered clothing made from a Union flag.

I could then waffle urgently about the punk nihilism of 1977 having thus become a facet of contemporary dance music’s urges towards self-abnegation. I could throw in references to the Prodigy’s music evoking the sound of the Titanic as it sank – all buckling sheet metal and popping rivets – and allude to the doomed nature of today’s E-generation. Or I could depict Saturday’s crowd as a single-celled, multi-headed dance-organism making vigorous movements inside a canvas big top, and then observe that, in the circus of life, everyone was going nowhere.

But you don’t want that pointy-head tosh, do you? I certainly don’t. You just want to know that one good bit came when the crowd sang along lustily with the Pistols’ Pretty Vacant – ”And we don’t care!” – moments before Keith and Co came out. Another good bit came near the end when everyone went bonkers to the Prodigy’s biggest hit, Firestarter.

In between there was the dust raised by 16,000 dancing feet. The ground shaking during Breathe. Girls wearing Wonderbras and Lycra hot pants. Bare-chested youths in camouflage trousers. Oh aye, pop music: it makes you think. But not that much.