Live Review: Run The Jewels, Danny Brown and Earl Sweatshirt @ The Palace, Melbourne

Clearly not a picture of last night’s show.

In the interest of “music journalism” I forced myself to attend a rap show last night featuring rappers I don’t really listen to on a regular basis, but don’t really have any huge level of hate for either, which is about as good as it’s going to get until Nice & Smooth decide to tour these shores. After enjoying a few rounds of boilermakers and weed with some associates, we wandered into the venue the very moment that El-P and Killer Mike hit the stage.

In theory, I should have liked the Run The Jewels album, but I’ve never really enjoyed El-Producto’s rapping on any level so that’s not going to happen. I appreciated what they did on Killer Mike’s R.A.P. album though, and he performed at least one track from that which was good times. Not so great was the work of the soundman, who seemed unable to get the mic levels right at any point in the evening, which meant that I was forced to consider the unfortunate outfit architecture selected by the former Co Flow front man involving a denim jacket and long shorts. Admittedly it was hotter than the inside of an active volcano in the crowd, and as such the stage would be at least 10 degrees warmer on account of the lighting, but the fact remains that if you’re committing to wearing a jacket then for chrissakes follow through with long pants. Try as I might to set a good example sporting head to toe ‘Lo (complete with jacket zipped up), folks continued to choose personal comfort over dignity.

Danny Brown appeared and brought the proverbial ruckus as if he was the headliner (not sure why he wasn’t, to be honest). Watching Danny perform is not unlike what would happen if the entire Pharcyde were trapped in one body and listened to Too $hort all week, as he launched into his trademark high-pitched Squeak Rap over speaker smashing 808 bass drops. Because of the aforementioned problems with the mic levels, 85% of his raps were indecipherable, instead coming across as a series of vocal sound-effects, which proved to be mildly amusing. He also brought a palatable energy to the room which the crowd fed off, allowing me to briefly forget the fact that I was surrounded by thousands of walking CRC dress code violations and nod my head in an appropriately reserved fashion, which is about as close as I get to being excited at rap show not involving M.O.P.

By the time Earl The Sweatshop appeared, the crowd had pretty much peaked, but there were still plenty of Odd Future stans in attendance to cheer for their current hero. Sadly, Earl and his weed carrier delivered the kind of set you would expect from the local opening act, failing to keep my attention for very long at all except for some song which had a Mobb Deep style beat which I kinda fuxed with. At this point it was time to break north and find a decent bar so that I could drink from an actual glass again. Clearly the set list should have been Earl / RTJ / Daniel Brown, so I can only assume the promoter is a mountain climber who plays an electric guitar. Overall not a bad night, but it’s also worth noting that I didn’t feel the need to do Rap Hands at any point of the evening either, which is always a bad sign at a rap show.