Controversial dance music act The Prodigy are to return to the town where it all began, Braintree.

The band are currently on tour promoting their new greatest hits album, Their Law, and have decided to end the tour where it began more than 15 years ago.

They will be performing at the Braintree Unex Towerlands Arena on Thursday, December 8.

Braintree is a special place for The Prodigy as the group formed there in the early 1990s.

Liam Howlett was a former pupil of Alec Hunter High School in the town and later became hooked on the new acid house scene in the late 1980s, often visiting nightspot The Barn in Braintree.

It was around this time he met Keith Flint and Leroy Thornhill and the three got together.

They got a manager, signed to XL recordings, and took on a fourth member, Maxim Reality, real name Keith Palmer.

Their first two albums, Experience and Music for a Jilted Generation, encapsulated the sound of the rave scene, but it was their third album, Fat of the Land, which really propelled them into the mainstream.

Controversial record Firestarter was the first single from that album, which cemented their popularity but at the same time angered groups who felt their lyrics encouraged anti-social behaviour.

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Published Wednesday, November 2, 2005

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