When I first hit The Rave/Eagles Club in Milwaukee I was already pumped up on enough throwback rap music to get Martha Stewart “twerkin‘ it.” Mentally preparing myself for what I supposed would be a riot fest or at least reminiscent of an early 1990’s mosh pit, when I arrived I parked outside the club and entered a McDonald’s next to the concert venue on 25th Street. While inside, a guy who looked like an Odd Future enthusiast sulked up to the cash register, forced it open and bolted with a stack of twenties.
No one really did anything. Although customers began trading slightly varying reports of the incident, nothing inside of us was moved. This little glint of excitement, though grim, sums up my experience at the Odd Future concert. The patrons in McDonald’s were just like those at The Rave Club that night. In both instances, a force that could be deemed odd came, took our money and left us passively involved in the whole ordeal.
The Rave/Eagles Club’s interior was like a strange, sexy, dungeon. The house was accented by blue and red light that fell onto the room and created a curious purple haze. The crowd was comprised mostly of the young and unintentionally awkward adolescent, rosy-cheeked youth standing clad in Hawaiian shirts, early 90’s punk band and skater gear, lots of dull plaid and – at least for one guy – a 666 sports jersey. The sports hats they wore were bent upward at the brim; the snap-backs they wore, brightly colored. Throughout the evening, most of these kids stood with their arms crossed, hopping gingerly or mixing potential dance moves with awkward body positioning. A kid that had to be 14 at most lingered about the bar, arms crossed in some ambivalent show of defiance. The few people there that were older than the majority of the crowd sipped their drinks in corners and tried to look inconspicuous. Youngsters throughout the night petitioned these older “cats” for a pint or two, and wandered around the area on the hunt for a drink.
Taco Bennett, the youngest member of the group, was the first to step on stage. He set the mood by playing the likes of Nas and DMX. The crowd freaked out; he was actually a very good showman. The group, under the curtain of the uproar he created, trickled in some 15 minutes later, and that’s when things first started to get dull – The Rave/Eagles Club’s sound system could support neither the group’s quaking bass lines nor its vocal talents. Although you couldn’t help but enjoy the music trembling up from the floor, Odd Future themselves remained mostly unintelligible (save for a few of their gargled obscenities which were clear, concise, and sent the patrons into an occasional uproar).
The highlights of the evening included Jasper Dolphin sauntering across the stage while smoking what I can only assume was a comically-enhanced cigarette and Mike G soloing while wearing an American flag as a do-rag. The majority of the crowd, at one point, rapping nearly the entire first verse of “Yonkers” before Tyler the Creator chimed in. Aside from this, however, the group ambled about the stage purposelessly, chatted amongst themselves in mumbles and offered lukewarm performances. There was no true investment in the crowd and no discourse between the stage personalities and the audience members. It was as if we were watching them through fiberglass and responding as best we could to what we could not feel.
With all of commercial rap music monopolized by promoters of drug use, violence or extravagant spending, Odd Future provides its audience with visions of rappers who are insecure, overly sensitive, childish and relatively harmless. Although anyone can crazy quilt a few taboo words and controversial themes together, not many people can sell a lifestyle like Odd Future can. I believed that they were rebel rousers, anarchist and most of all MCs. I believed them, yet in the end I was given a sheer hint of excitement as they appeared out of the blue, took my money and ran.
