What are your memories of that show and how the crowd reacted? There was a confidence about them, they didn’t have any doubts, and they really appreciated the fact that they were given the opportunity, so they totally stepped up to the plate. They absolutely deserved to headline they had already sold-out Milton Keynes Bowl, and we knew what the band were capable of doing in terms of putting on a show – a proper rock show. There were still people saying they shouldn’t headline the festival, but for me it was a no-brainer. “There was a real confidence about them when they headlined. How did the band feel about facing the prospect of headlining Download? Even though the weather was fucking horrendous, The Prodigy absolutely fucking smashed it.” People go, ‘Yeah, but you had Sabbath on the bill and Metallica on the bill,’ but the bulk of our tickets were weekend sales, so people wanted to be there for the whole thing. “In 2012 – and we mustn’t lose sight of this – when The Prodigy headlined, it was the biggest selling Download we’ve ever had. He was always friendly, always chatty, always appreciative of everything that anyone did for him.'Īnd of course in 2012 they headlined the Download for the first time… He was an absolute gentleman, and he was the same all the times that I worked with The Prodigy when they came to Download. “A lot of people forget that Keith played at the very first Download: he had a solo project when The Prodigy were on down time. People were climbing poles inside the tent, it was rammed, you could not move in there and it was insane. They played the second stage, which was in a tent at the time. As a band they transcended that pigeonhole of being a dance act. I remember when I first booked them to play Download in 2006, the majority of rock music fans thought I was insane for booking them, but I knew what they would bring to the festival. Would you say this is why they were able to cross a multitude of genres and communities? If you go back to when that Firestarter video first came out, and when we all first saw it, the character that Keith plays in that, I think elevated The Prodigy from what they were to this iconic and original band.”Įven though they were classified as a dance act, with Keith’s image in that video he became iconic as this edgy-looking punk dude.

When most people think of The Prodigy they think of Keith. I mean, you almost forget that with The Prodigy it has always been about their sound, but Keith orchestrated everything, and he was the focal point of the band. “We’ve basically lost another amazing frontman. For you, what has the rock world lost with the passing of Keith Flint?

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