LIVE REVIEW + PHOTOS: The Prodigy in Boston, MA (09.24.26
In my few years shooting and writing about concerts, there’s a short list of artists who shaped me as a kid, the ones you love so much as a teenager that you never actually expect to see them live, let alone photograph them. So imagine my reaction a few months back, scrolling through who’s coming to Boston, when I saw The Prodigy on the list. They don’t tour the States often. I had to read it twice.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Roadrunner as packed as it was last night. Every single person in that room came ready to lose it. The energy in the building before the lights even dropped told you this wasn’t going to be a stand and watch kind of show. Honestly, I wished more than once that I didn’t have a camera in my hands so I could throw myself into the pit with everyone else.
They opened with “Omen,” and by the time “Voodoo People” and “Poison” landed back to back, the whole room was already gone. Maxim was moving across that stage like it was still the 90s. The man does not stop. Trying to track him through a lens reminded me of shooting Bruce Dickinson at an Iron Maiden show, somebody who refuses to stay in one frame for more than a second. Add in fans crowd surfing over the barricade and security cutting through my sight line every few minutes, and yeah, it was a real challenge. I love that kind of challenge.
“Poison” has been living in my head since I was a teenager, so there was no way I wasn’t going to be mouthing every word while trying to hold a shot steady. Then came “Light Up the Sky,” which turned into a showcase for Liam Howlett, watching him work a rig full of gear that looks straight out of the 90s and make it sound like it was built yesterday is a genuinely rare thing to witness in person. “Wind It Up” kept that same spotlight on him before Maxim came back out front.
And that’s when I felt it coming. “Firestarter.” Keith Flint’s image lit up the backdrop in blue neon, moving across the screen the same way he moved in the original video. The band has kept that tribute in the set at basically every show since he passed in 2019, his own vocal still running through the PA, and out of respect Maxim didn’t sing a word of it. He just stood by the drums in silence and let Flint have the song. Watching hundreds of people scream every lyric back at a screen, for a man who’s been gone six years, was one of the heaviest and most beautiful things I’ve seen at a show. It says everything about how much this band still means to people, and how much Flint still means to the two of them.
“Invaders Must Die” and “No Good (Start the Dance)” pulled the energy back into some of the deeper cuts, the sleeper hits for the people who really know the catalog, and not once did the crowd let up. Nobody checked a phone. Nobody drifted to the bathroom. Somewhere in there Maxim grabbed handful after handful of water bottles, three, four, five at a time, and just launched them into the crowd, shouting something about his Boston warriors and how long it had been since they’d played this city. He asked someone in the crowd a question I couldn’t quite make out over the noise. And then there was this running gag the whole night: little neon light up balls getting thrown around on stage, and every time one landed near him he’d stop, stare at it, laugh, get hit by one, and just keep going like it was the funniest thing that had happened to him all tour.
By “Get Your Fight On” the pit had split into what looked like two or three separate circles going at once, something I genuinely haven’t seen happen at Roadrunner before. Maxim fed right into it, and by the time “Their Law” and “Smack My Bitch Up” hit back to back, we were in peak 90s territory, the kind of run that makes you feel like you could die happy right there on the floor. Maxim was everywhere at once, running the length of the stage, pointing into the crowd, feeding off exactly what they were giving him. From what I’ve seen fans posting from other stops on this run, that one two punch has been closing out the main set most nights, and it’s easy to see why nobody wants to touch it.
They walked off, but nobody in that room believed it was over. Sure enough they came back for “Breathe,” the one song I’d personally been holding out for all night. I won’t lie, part of me wished I could’ve seen Keith up there for that one too. “Take Me to the Hospital” followed, and the pit took that title seriously. Then “Warrior’s Dance,” which Maxim dedicated straight to his warriors in the room, tying right back into the name of this whole tour. “Out of Space” came next, a song that instantly took me back to riding to school in Paris with it blasting in my headphones, still just as strange and infectious all these years later. They closed with “Comanche,” and that was it. Lights up, ears ringing, room completely wrecked in the best way.
Three decades in and this band still plays like they’ve got something to prove. They don’t.
Photos – The Prodigy at Roadrunner in Boston, MA (09.24.26):
