Lord of the dance

I won't pretend to be (or to have been) the biggest Prodigy fan, but the news that Keith Flint has died at the age of just 49 nevertheless stopped me in my tracks.

1994's Music For The Jilted Generation and 1997's The Fat Of The Land are seminal albums in anybody's book - the first a frenetic post-Criminal Justice Bill assault on mainstream culture and the second a record stuffed with iconic singles that danced on Britpop's grave. Admittedly, I was one of those who was initially baffled to find the band on the pages of Kerrang!, but they were far more punk and provocative than most of the other featured acts could ever have dreamt of being.

Flint was originally only employed as a dancer - someone to help generate energy and draw focus when the band were playing live - though he did of course go on to contribute vocals to their most celebrated singles, 'Firestarter' and 'Breathe'. As Alexis Petridis has noted, he fulfilled his primary role so brilliantly that, with his spiked hair and intense stare, he became the instantly recognisable public face of The Prodigy, not the band's founder and producer Liam Howlett.

Petridis observes: "He became a manic presence on stage, projecting an image that lay somewhere between threatening and cartoonish. He memorably described his revised dancing style as 'using my body to shout'." And yet, as countless collaborators, friends and strangers have attested since his death, it was all just an act - he was a completely different person offstage: sweet, friendly, caring, generous. Not your average rock star, in other words.