Village Underground, London
This is the first London gig proper by Odd Future – or Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All to give them their full title. It is also, because of the notorious Los Angeles collective's grotesquely compelling hip-hop with lyrics of homicidal loathing and sexual degradation, the event of the season. The buzz is palpable despite the gig taking place mid-afternoon. Inside, the crowd for this all-ages affair are young – around the same age as Odd Future, which range from 17 to 23 – and a mix of men and women, despite songs containing lurid misogyny and graphic depictions of rape.
First there is a DJ set of pop and R&B from Syd "tha Kyd" Bennett, the female studio whizz who engineers Odd Future's recordings and who happens to be gay. So maybe they're not the feral hoodlums of internet lore. Still, when the charismatic Tyler the Creator bounds on stage, ski mask on, for Sandwitches, and jolts around manically, joined by Hodgy Beats and Left Brain for a chorus of, "They are them, we are us – kill them all!", you could be forgiven for assuming they were.
The stage backdrop, on the day of the royal wedding, comprises posters of the happy couple, and Tyler encourages the audience to chant some fairly graphic anti-royal sentiments. He climbs on to the speaker stack and dives off, damaging his foot; later, he will go to hospital.
But there is far more to Odd Future than easy thrills. The music is hulking, baroque, and awesomely accomplished; the words are a litany of artful invective and self-mythologising, a new language from a subculture we don't quite understand. Yonkers, with its churning industrial rhythm, is the song of the night from the century's first new pop group paradigm – an affiliation of producers, musicians, video directors and designers of whom only four are here tonight.
Towards the end, Tyler demands his cap back following one stagedive too many and the energy is lost. But two questions remain: are they for real? And how will the hottest band on the planet maintain their unearthly power?