Photo by Mehan Jayasuriya, taken during SXSW.
By Odd Future‘s standards, last night’s trip to the Rock and Roll Hotel must have seemed relatively tame. No riots happened outside, no glass bottles graced the stage (the Rock and Roll Hotel staff made quite sure of that) and even the oft-publicized misogynistic banter seemed subdued, coming more from the crowd than the stage.
That said, this was still an Odd Future show. Thus, the entirety of the sold-out 400-person venue pushed forward, occupying the front half of the room as the young L.A. rap collective bounced before them and crowd surfed over them. Thirty minutes before Odd Future DJ Syd the Kyd had even taken the stage to warm up the crowd with songs from Mike Jones and Tyler, The Creator, kids in baseball caps with X’d hands had already started inundating the empty stage with shouts of “Wolf! Gang!”
Unsurprisingly, group leader Tyler, The Creator, who just released his second solo effort, Goblin, commanded the most crazed responses from the group. His guttural growl could hardly be heard over the crowd who knew all the words to songs like “Sandwitches” and “Yonkers.” Tyler fed off this energy, his eyes alternately bugging out and rolling back into his head as he jumped across the stage, pushing the speakers. “D.C. is real hype right now,” he said in the middle of the ruckus.
Yet the concert was far from being The Tyler show. He may be the group’s Derrick Rose, but he was equally excited while standing in the back as other Wolf Gang members like Hodgy Beats and Mike G took center stage. Singer Frank Ocean also obliged the only fan request of the night, for “American Wedding,” before parrying audience requests for the aforementioned requesting audience member to show her tits. “Not you, Domo,” he laughed at his stripping co-MC.
Yet for that one show of self-awareness, OFWGKTA still ended the show using the tone for which they’re most famous: violent catharsis. Their final song (before playing absent member Earl Sweatshirt’s “Earl” over the PA) was “Radicals.” The sweaty mob shouted the angry chorus as if they actually planned on killing people and burning buildings.
At the end of the show, though, they really just mobbed the merch table.
