It's been said before and sadly it will be again but sometimes live hip hop is its own worst enemy. Such is the glorious, inventive wonder of their recorded output that the genre's brightest hope California's Odd Future, aka OFWGKTA, aka Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All could — should — have bucked the trend.
Frustratingly, an amateurishly atrocious sound meant their wry words couldn’t be heard between songs (let alone during them) and their stage set consisted of what seemed to be a tiny, dirty old bedsheet festooned with iron-on versions of their doughnut logo. Meanwhile, breakout star Frank Ocean and live fulcrum Earl Sweatshirt, were missing: touring solo and struck down with pneumonia respectively. What remained was six men shouting over, around and to each other as DJ Taco Bennett provided backbeats via laptop for two relentless hours.
However, with a giddy, near-rabid crowd making a mountain of an event from a musical molehill, the atmosphere was electric. Visionary leader Tyler, The Creator was a magnetic rabble-rouser on the silly We Got Bitches as much as the more considered 48 (one of several dips into his solo catalogue) and the magnificent ensemble piece, Oldie.
Mike G’s heroic stage diving notwithstanding, some of the excess baggage coasted: Jasper Dolphin spent most of the set breaking the smoking laws, while Left Brain kept leaving the stage. Yet, when they all swapped verses, lines and even words while gambolling across stage, there was some semblance of the spectacle this could have been. But material so strong, so lovingly crafted and so fiercely intelligent deserves so much more.
