Originally posted by clackers RIP Keith Flint. Club music has a problem - if you pay to see a gig in a theatre or stadium, are you really shelling out dollars to see one guy push various buttons on his laptop and controllers?
Orbital solved it with a big lightshow, Liam Howlett of The Prodigy by hiring three dancers, one of whom proved charismatic and was given the microphone for the epic Fat of the Land album.
Honestly, I'm terribly sad about Keith. He was a genuinely nice bloke, and very different from his image (even discounting his recent quieter lifestyle). The Prodigy were pioneering in bringing the whole club and rave thing to a wider audience.
On the subject of club music and large-scale gigs...
I was involved in the dance music scene of the late 80s to early 90s... not at the level of big festivals and huge raves, but rather underground clubs and warehouse events, all in London. Here in the UK (and I can only suspect other places too) it was, I think, a way for people to deal with the angst of the time. A large part of the culture was the togetherness and "love" (perhaps not unlike the 60s that I missed but my parents experienced). The average club or warehouse rave event and all of the great up-beat music involved promoted a huge sense of belonging between everyone present. As I implied, I wasn't
deeply into it, but was willingly involved in
some of it - the smaller, more intimate aspects - and some of my best early-adulthood memories are from those times.
And so to the large-scale gigs...
I think it's less about going to see someone from that time "play", as wanting them to recreate the feelings and emotions of those heady days. As such, the on-stage performance - not musically, but the "charisma", whipping up of the crowd, and (as you suggested with Orbital) the accompanying technical show - is key. But any folks who cut their social teeth on that era will make up for anything missing in such gigs through enthusiasm and togetherness with others in the crowd...