Down with the Sickness: Tyler the Creator from OFWGKTA Pic: © Drew Farrell
Already merry hell before the release of any debut album, the rappers that form the collective that is Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All aren't in apologetic mood, one of the members swatting thrown bottles furiously back into the crowd and at the TV crane, just stoking the riotous reaction.
It wouldn't be right to say it's the American controversialists versus the audience even when it feels like a confrontation; instead the band are pretty successfully stoking the fire during their expletive-laden set strewn with all manner of dark and absolutely non-PC subject manner, fat beats pounding away beneath the rhymes and lack of reason, and the band willing a reaction from the crowd.
Most currently notorious (and successful) member Tyler the Creator is stuck on a high chair thanks to apparently breaking his leg - looking constantly delighted to be there like an unsuspecting kid suddenly lifted up and into the middle of the stage - but that doesn't curtail their bile in any way, and it's thrilling (and more than a little bit threatening) to watch. They hilariously exit cursing and goading the audience, even though you suspect themselves secretly pleased with the pretty notable reaction from the Radio 1/NME Stage crowd for such an act still in their infancy. Things are only go downhill from here, perhaps in the best possible way...
Then it's onto Slash's solo outfit with Myles Kennedy on vocals, and by goodness the former Guns N Roses guitarist can still shred with the best of them. ('Shred' in this instance meaning to play the Les Paul like an absolute champion.)
Tackling some of his more recent material along other GnR classics, it doesn't hurt that Kennedy has the sort of voice Axl Roses imagines in his dreams he has (rather than the throaty whiny rasp he's had to make do with since making himself a laughing stock for the past couple of decades).
It's decent to see (if by 'see' I mean watch on the video screens, as view of the main stage is hampered by the umbrellas slung into use to protect against the rain finally making good on its promise and lashing downwards). Slash's set is good solid rock 'n' roll entertainment even if it feels a little karaoke; shorn of any real Appetite for Destruction they lack the leering visceral menace of OFWGKTA. But as the crowd roar along to Sweet Child of Mine, Velvet Revolver's magnificent Slither and finally Paradise City that's hardly the point...
OFWGKTA T IN THE PARK GALLERY
