Review: OFWGKTA at the Hultsfred Festival 2011

2011-07-15

15:44:20

Comment

Yesterday I only had one (yeah one, not a very good ratio I know) thing on my agenda that I really wanted to see, OFWGKTA. Overwhelmed by the hype, would they live up to the high expectations? Tyler, the Creator tweeted this when they arrived to Hultsfred: “This Shit Wack As Fuck” and that got me worried, or anxious perhaps is the better word? You know, being from Hultsfred (and a Swede in general), you want to make people comfortable, you wanna be a good represent. You want them to say FUCK I LOVED SWEDEN THANK YOU and stuff like that, it’s a act of reciprocity I think. Hultsfred is the 2nd last show before the collective goes back to the States after weeks on the road.

However, as soon as Syd the Kyd entered the Blue Stage, the second biggest stage of the festival in the pouring rain and blasted on some Brick Squad, I was super socked all the way down to my panties and not for the right reason, that stress over being a good represent for the Hultsfred community and Sweden left a tiny bit, and for good when Tyler, with his broken foot on his wooden chair, said that he he was wrong, that this actually was one of their better gigs. Cause the matter of fact is, OFWGKTA on Swedish soil, this gig in the legendary woods of Hultsfred, was in fact, legendary. It will be one of those rare “I was there”-moments.

Why? Hip hop gigs and festivals are a common flop but Odd Future certainly lived up to the hype. Even though they cut down the set a bit, even thought the mad cold rain Tyler, Domo and the others delivered. It was everything I’ve expected it to be, but better.

The crowd was quite big, bigger than I expected, much bigger than the one Cut Copy had an hour earlier at the biggest stage. But one thing struck me, standing there, watching the faces around me, what makes this, white homogen, middle class (sadly, festivals are that way in Sweden) public love Odd Future so much? It’s not the typical hip hop audience. Perhaps because Odd Future is the voice of young mainstream people. The same voice that appealed to the young punk-generation of the 1970′s but with the big difference it’s not politically correct, it’s everything but political correct. It’s mostly a young male audience and could be the same people that run ramped during Reclaim the Streets or that joins AFA for the fun of it, cause it’s considered to be “cool”. It walks on the thin line between hip hop and punk and perhaps the young generation needs this anti thesis? Cause no matter how brutal, sexual oriented and violent friendly Odd Future’s lyrics may be, the talk in between is real clever and witty, creating another layer to the great OFWGKTA-cake.

Tyler talks about that he needs to take shit so bad, he throws out his camera to the audience so a lucky person could snap a picture of the band on stage and then throw it back and when even Tyler chants “FREE EARL” in his calf high green socks from American Apparel and bare chest all mayhem breaks loose.

Best: ‘Radical’, ‘Fuck the Police’ & ‘Earl’.

Even though the Hultsfred Festival deny it, I really hope OFWGKTA will drop by Stockholm and Open Air the 17th of August as their tour plan says. Hopefully there will be no rain, no broken foot and a mosh pit worthy it’s name. But I wonder if that gig will be just as memorable as the one last night, I doubt it.

Grade: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ x

(the photos attached to this review are borrow since my crappy camera doesn’t work under the extreme weather conditions and they are borrowed from rockfoto.nu and belongs to that site and it’s photographers)