Leftfield, Worth the wait

I’m lucky that over the years I’ve managed to see nearly all my favourite bands or musicians in concert at some time.  There are a couple of very notable exceptions but those boxes will now never be ticked.  I never saw Bob Marley but I did see the Wailers.  Never saw Led Zeppelin but I saw Jimmy Page on stage with Aerosmith at a festival.  One of my favourite albums of the 90’s was “Leftism” by Leftfield, dance music at its very best!  Despite seeing many big names in this genre I’d always managed to miss seeing Leftfield, until last Saturday night.

Mr Green had sent me a link to a stream of their new album (are they still called that?), the first in years.  It was good and we decided seeing them was a must, it was a pleasant surprise to find out they were playing London Forum in just a few days.  So in the company of our better halves we pointed a motor southward and headed off to the smoke.  As ever the journey passed quickly in laughter and chat, within a couple of hours we had pulled up and parked just around the corner from the venue.  We were in London with time to spare so grabbed a beer and a fantastic pizza before the main event.

There was a DJ warming the crowd up, he was pretty good and got us moving but I can’t remember his name.  The Forum is a nice medium sized venue which filled up fast but we’d got a good position on the floor in the middle and we weren’t budging.  As usual there was a frustrating pause in proceedings; the crowd was ready to go! 

At last Leftfield arrived with a beat and a bang, the crowd responded and the atmosphere was perfect.  This was the way it stayed for the next hour and a half, loads of new tunes and a good sprinkling of old ones.  The room didn’t stop moving and the dub tunes in particular lifted the roof.  If I had to pick a highlight then an old fave, “Inspection Check one” would have to be it.  I love many types of music and there are many different types of brilliant live experience.  This didn't have the visual energy of the Prodigy and it wasn't the extravaganza of Screamadelica but for dancing with a crowd of blissed out, like minded people it was as good as it gets. There was the obligatory trippy light show and a couple of guests joining the show but it was mostly about the rhythms and the dancing.  Sometimes I want a gig to end, others I’ve had enough by the time they finish but I wanted this one to keep on all night.  I waited a long time to see Leftfield, I wasn’t disappointed.  Would I go see them again?  Hell yes!!