Prodigy

with Meat Beat Manifesto and DJ Punk Rock

The Tabernacle, Atlanta • 6.26.98

Tyson Meade

“Smack My Bitch Up”! Any questions? Okay, so maybe it was like a Sabbath concert. However, here, members leave and reappear on the stage like extras in some demented Flashdance, and the main character looks like the Candyman (horror film, darling). I was wondering when the balcony floor would buckle and give way in this house of the lord, because it, along with the bar, was shaking like Jello, and the audience was the fruit (oh, yeah, the Prod’s were playing in an old Baptist church replete with stained glass, makes me wonder how Linda Blair felt).

I think I failed to mention how the kids loved it and would have died for their heroes. But these boys are where it’s at. They’re an adolescent raver’s Public Enemy. I would give them a PG. When I was walking up (way before the over-indulgence of overpriced beer), I talked to some mommies who dropped their johnnies off for the concert. And man, these johnnies had the good old fashioned hard bodies. I think I saw some eggs frying on these bodies. Smack my bitch up, indeed.

I missed Meat Beat Manifesto, and I wasn’t that upset, because I wanted to see the $30-a-head-main-man show. Did I mention the lights and all of the spectacle of that like vintage ELP? I mean, I was thinking this was Brain Salad Surgery Mach II, but it wasn’t. “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends… “ We had the dancey-dance kings with the appearing, disappearing, reappearing members and the lights again were resplendent. I envisioned Anne Rice sticking Lestat there sucking out the blood of the meatheads and frat boys. Smack my bitch up? Frat my bitch up… ◼