T in the Park review: Tyler, The Creator, Slam Tent

Thousands have been lured into the cavern of the Goblin, as the emperor of Californian upstarts Odd Future - Tyler, The Creator - takes to a Slam Tent stage he is extremely quick to describe as consisting of “the dumbest set-up ever”.

He’s obviously not been informed of the tent’s usual inhabitants(DJ’s), or for that matter the fact that its unofficial proprietors, Glasgow veterans Slam, have picked him to “throw a few unusual things in there” to “open up the musical horizons”.

Perilous environments and bodily harm are no stranger to the Odd Future frontman, given his usual on-stage escapades, but skipping treacherously over wires on a narrow beam usually designed for static DJs seems to have placed him in the foulest of moods.

It’s either that, or he’s just keeping up appearances of his typically aggressive, profanity-and-shock-tactic filled deliveries. With an artist as malevolent as Tyler, you can never tell.

With Jaspar Dolphin and Taco Bennet in tow, he strolls the stage with menace, performing Sam Is Dead, the lunacy-inducing Tron Cat and the utterly graceless B***h Suck D**k with ease.

It is the dangerously unpredictable nature of IFHY’s chorus which perfectly sums up the strange allure of Odd Future and Tyler, the Creator; this also seeps through the mixed messages – both courteousness and obscenity are embraced – directed at his audience.

A repeated acapella taunt of “where’s my f***ing video?!” to the technicians, a popped shoulder, a wild stage dive and countless hurled shoes later, Tyler is being urged off the stage, due to time restrictions.

He protests insults, then ignores the side stage, before forcing the audience into an agreement to stay completely motionless until he breaks into the first verse of closer Tamale, which they dutifully do. Thirty seconds later, the audience erupt into lawless, wicked frenzy.

During Nightmare, he spat, “I’m ace, parentless, odd, kinda arrogant, ignorant as f**k, offend people for the hell of it”.

This evening, Tyler, The Creator kept true to those words.

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