FOR a group that once snubbed Top of the Pops to prevent overexposure Prodigy last night smacked of a band dislocated from their underground fan base.

Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena was busy with old school die-hards and new fans ready to witness the return of the band that changed the face of dance in the 1990s.

While the Essex four-piece chose to open with ‘World’s On Fire’ from their latest offering ‘Invaders Must Die’ the crowd really snap to attention with the protest album track ‘Their Law’ from 1994’s seminal ‘Music For The Jilted Generation’.

Everything up of ‘Jilted Generation’ got a good show, including anthems ‘Voodoo People’ and ‘No Good, Start The Dance’, but the 1991 ‘Experience’ tunes that set them apart in their infancy were missing. No ‘Everybody In The Place’. No ‘Charley Says’.

But with so many bangers to choose from they were always going to have to make some compromises.

Patience was thin on the ground though, a crackling speaker quickly led to boos during the early parts of the set. That’s perhaps understandable when Prodigy think nothing of making fans wait seven years for a new album (1997 - 2007; Fat Of The Land - Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned) and offer precious few new ideas when they do get to it.

The old tracks do succeed in making the crowd remember why Prodigy were great but there are no creative remixes and Keith Flint and Maxim are more like mascots now than vocalists.

Tracks from ‘Invaders Must Die’ sound fresh in places and go down well but when you compare them to bands like Soulwax who put as many hours in playing to 500 in a club as they do playing to 5,000 in a field Prodigy make you wonder if they’re worth their weight in gold.

At their best they can still blow your head off but they’re not doing anything you haven’t already heard.