Odd Future at Terminal 5

What you might not realize about Tyler, The Creator from the YouTube clips that made him famous is he’s physically big — a rangy 6-foot-2 — and his stage presence is even bigger. That feral magnetism was apparent throughout Wednesday’s Odd Future gig at Terminal 5, the latest stop on the underage hip-hop collective’s 27-date Golf Wang Tour, but never more than when he deferred to the crowd on the first eight bars of breakout hit “Yonkers” before careening to the finish in that distinctive baritone growl. Not even Wu-Tang Clan — the seminal rap supergroup to whom Odd Future is inevitably and unfairly compared — can boast as obviously charismatic a frontman. (The RZA was “the head,” but often dwarfed lyrically by Ghost, Raekwon, Method Man or even Deck.) Clearly, Tyler is the senior among underclassmen. And when he sneaked up to the second-floor balcony and plunged 20 feet into the adoring crowd less than a half-hour into the 75-minute set, he ensured they’d love him forever.

Say what you want about OFWGKTA, the polarizing 10-man company from L.A. hell-bent on making 2011 their personal coming-out party, but they’ve certainly got people talking. Months before Tyler’s MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist, they were commanding the attention of ivory-tower music critics, 4chan lurkers and the hip-hop elite. (Weezy co-signed this week.) As the blogger-driven hype gives way to mainstream recognition, Odd Future remains shrewdly defiant of labels from hipster to horrorcore — and in genuine awe of their popularity. “Yo, this is a lot of fuckin’ people,” Tyler said by way of a salutation, craning his neck to meet the fans whose legs dangled from the second and third balconies, as if to say they’ve come a long way from Webster Hall’s 300-capacity Studio where they made their NYC debut less than a year ago.

Musically it was a shit show. The mix was off all night — though the cavernous space did it no favors — and made the distinctive styles and deliveries of supporting members Mike G., Frank Ocean, Left Brain, Hodgy Beats, et al., sometimes incomprehensible (if par for the course for hip-hop). And songs that sound the same — synth-heavy with ominous basslines — is a far graver sin than the misanthropic lyrics that have attracted so much negative attention. Odd Future don’t just slip a controversial lyric or reference in there for scholars to decode; the hook for a banger like “Bitch Suck Dick” is just as objectionable as you might expect. (”I’m opening a church to sell coke and Led Zeppelin/ To fuck Mary in her ass,” Tyler snarls on “French!”) Yet they conjure an anarchy familiar enough in 2011 to be nonthreatening; Tyler & Co.’s fantasies are drawn not from experience but gleaned second- and third-hand through an oral tradition, i.e. what they always told us rap would be. Critics say they simply regurgitate every hip-hop cliché in the book, and they’re not totally wrong either. But it’s the ongoing flirtation with self-parody and satire that keep you looking for a man behind the curtain: You’d almost blame Fear of a Black Hat if any of them hadn’t been in diapers when it came out.

Odd Future’s intellectual merit (or lack thereof) aside, the energy they brought Wednesday was earnest in full. They draws heavily from a punk spirit that predates them by a generation-and-a-half, from the random mosh pits to the Spartan presentation to the “fuck everybody” defiance. Glowsticks, an umbrella, countless middle fingers, a vanilla Dutchie, camera phones, a Mexican flag were among the objects spotted in and above the crowd. In fact, these guys are tapping into something more universal than punk: the impulse underlying OFWGKTA’s “kill people, burn shit, fuck school” mantra is a lot older than Sid Vicious. And, yes, they were as loud as advertised: thought the heavy face-buzzing bass was deployed with surprising judiciousness, avoiding the trap of sensory overload. Syd tha Kid (whose 15-minute DJ set was the lone opener) provided the backbone to the chaos, mixing original beats with a couple familiar but not too obvious backing tracks (e.g. GZA’s “4th Chamber” and Gucci Mane’s “Lemonade”).

What makes Odd Future such compelling theater is they draw from the strongest source of all: the wellspring of youth and the spontaneity that comes with it. A very passionate and very young crowd — “surprised it’s so packed for a school night,” one friend quipped — provides a fresh, authentic energy that Odd Future feeds off. When security aggressively removed one overexcited stage-crasher near the end, it only stoked the group’s already soaring energy. They eschew ritual and convention: There’s no break before the “encore,” which consists exclusively of the group members preening and strutting the stage, a cross between what you’d see after watching a Broadway show or beating a video game. Despite the looseness of the affair, the production was sharp enough to be shocked they’re on the front end of their first-ever national tour. There’s a lot to like and still so much room for improvement.

Perhaps the most rewarding validation came 20 minutes before the show ended, when the group’s uncompromising (but not unwieldy) sonic assault had a steady stream of fans milling out the door. Odd Future should and I’m sure does view it as a badge of honor (“fuck the haters!”), one last throw of the It-Group yoke before crossing over for good. Whether they’re Mike Tyson of 1985 or Michael Grant of 1999 remains to be seen, but I definitely want to find out what happens next.

Set list:
64
Transylvania
Rolling Papers
Forest Green
Tron Cat
TANGGOLF
Everything That’s Yours
Swag Me Out
Suicide Watch
A Million and One Answers
French!
More Clouds
Orange Juice
I Got a Gun
Come Through Looking Clean
Stick Up
Yonkers
Turnt Down
Basic Bitch
Loaded
Burger
Sandwitches
Tank Top in the Club
Cool
Fuck Police
Bitch Suck Dick
SteamRoller
Bastard
Seven
Moracular World
Analog
Tina
Radicals