Okay, I get that Tyler, the Creator and his crew are “punk” and are thus prone to do outrageous things just to troll us all, but I think they’re beginning to cross the line into dudes-who-need-butt-kickings territory: at a performance last night at Voodoo Fest in New Orleans, the Odd Future boys attacked the photographers taking pic of their show, even slapping one female photographer so hard that she was knocked to the ground.
Reports the NBC affiliate in Baton Rouge:
The show got heated at the close of the first song when the lead vocalist known by his stage name, Tyler the Creator, 20, began addressing the crowd about his disliking for photographers. In his explanation he says that the barricaded area where the photographers work is not fair to the fans. Other members of the group backed up his words.
Vyron Turner, aka “Left Brain,” got physical with the less than two-dozen photographers in the pit area. He slung water at them, and then pushed and kicked cameras. The truly shocking moment was when he slapped freelance professional photographer Amy Harris across her face, knocking her camera to the ground.
“I have worked many shows before, and I’ve had to deal with a band flinging water at the photographers, but I never expected this to happen,” Harris told NBC33 News shortly after the incident occurred. “In the pit, the male to female ratio is about 20 to 1. There were way more men in that pit than women.”
The Times Picayune also reported on the incident this morning in a piece that included a rather hilarious description of the group’s on-stage act…
OFWGKTA has a bare-bones stage set-up, with DJ Syd da Kid working her CDJ and MacBook on a rickety folding table. They made up for the low production value with hyperactive antics, bouncing wildly around the stage and joking with each other like a bunch of Beavis and Butthead clones with Tourette’s, sometimes at the expense of the audience. (“Put your hand is the air,” they commanded. Then: “If your hand are in the air, then your mom’s a [bad word.] “Ha ha! Your mom is a [same word.]”
You know, there’s a fine line between being “edgy” and being bratty, misogynist f*cking as$holes, and I’m pretty sure these dudes have crossed it.
UPDATE: According to a people I spoke to who were at the show, Left Brain rears back and slaps Amy Harris at the 1:20 mark in this video…
Odd Future – Transylvania – Voodoo Experience 2011 from Voodoo Experience on Vimeo.
(Pic via)
