I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but alongside the ultra-cool pictures and clothes, holier-than-thou sneerings and "I don’t give a fuck! (about anything but my fringe)" attitude, Vice magazine perpetuates some pretty distasteful ideas. Take the projector on the wall of Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds tonight for example. Spewing out rapid-fire pictures of ripped denim and peak cap clad skateboarders, all far too clean cut to have been chucking themselves down half-pipes, is transparent but fine for pushing a magazine’s image and personality, but there’s an obvious gender demarcation between this and the girls projected on to the canvas, who are pretty much without exception part-naked and in a compromising position (obviously drunk), seemingly photographed for no reason other than as objects of sex/humour/both. The place feels too much like every Spring break I’ve seen in the movies, something which the The Intergalactic Republic of Kongo seem to thrive on as their front-man acts like he’s at a Girls Gone Wild frat party. Starting the set by eating a banana and spouting some rubbish about "carbohydrates of the soul", he then proceeds to smash around to keyboard driven afro-beat pop songs and terrorise any girls that dare to venture close enough to the stage, eventually snaring one poor victim by her bum cheeks. I’m all for artistic license to entertain, but if I wanted to see an arrogant, moustachioed, mid-30s sleaze-ball molesting people trying to dance and make the best of sub-standard music, I would have gone to Oceana.
After a long wait, and rumours that Death Grips will play next, the crowd herds themselves down the wind tunnel that is Nation's front-of-stage area and waits anxiously for the main event. What they get instead is Peace, a total contrast to what we’ve just witnessed but equally as likely to make you attempt harakiri with a plastic aeroplane knife. They play insipid, poseur indie-rock with little imagination, which for a number of reasons makes you wonder why they are on the bill, until you remember that you’re at a Vice launch party and with further inspection that their clothes are quite cool?
I don’t know if MC Ride of Death Grips is feeling similarly nonplussed by the white boy Mardi-Gras atmosphere tonight, but hood up, eyes down, he’s been stalking about the place, sometimes gazing a little forlornly over the smoker’s courtyard and forever sticking to the shadows like the Grim Reaper. By the time Zach Hill starts setting up the tight-skinned focus of his frustrations on stage, it’s nigh on midnight and there are murmurs of discontent. However, these are quelled when all members of Death Grips finally get their act together, MC Ride cuts the crap getting instantly shirtless and a huge baseball capped sentry is stationed at the side of the stage to stop the band being pushed through the back wall. The first vocal barging a passage down the microphone cord is the refrain "it goes, it goes, it goes..." and everyone explodes in a flurry of bouncing arms and shoving elbows that reflects the frustration and anticipation of the preceding three hours. This is a different kind of ‘Guillotine’ to that of the sparse, pent-up recorded example as Hill throws in every complex fill known to man and the vocals are given an even harsher treatment whilst simultaneously being spat back by the audience. Samples allow for each song to flow into the next and the live sweat-soaked drums give each first beat a drop the size of the Grand Canyon, so that you’re thrown into abrasive tracks like ‘Full Moon (Death Classic)’ and ‘Known For It’ without warning. The whole experience is an unrelenting assault on the senses; crowd surfers kick you in the head so you shrug them off, trip over the stage and get a finger in the face from the glaring sentinel who scares you back into the melee, all the while being stabbed aurally by the fury pouring from the speakers. The highlight of this chaos is the grinding, menacing ‘Beware’ that opens with a chilling Charles Manson monologue and surges along with chants of "I light my torch and burn it, I am the beast I worship", which their immensely bearded and tattooed vocalist drawls out through gritted teeth, all the while throwing muscled arms up against the front row and chiding those present with piercing eyes.
Death Grips completely smash the ambience of poseur pretension that has been lingering all night, and whether Vice magazine have decided that they’re hip or not, their intimidating brand of vicious hip hop is still nothing short of authentic.