Music / Reviews
Review: The Internet, Motion
For a Thursday night, the main room at Motion is packed close to capacity; the crowd young and eager for the California outfit to emerge from the behind the smoke filling the stage.
The Internet come on at nine, delving into a set built mainly around tracks from their third album, Ego Death, released last summer. For longer-term devotees, followers of the band since their emergence from the Odd Future collective five years ago, there are also several numbers from their magnificently-titled debut, Purple Naked Ladies.
It’s a decidedly chilled affair: a balance between retro-tinged, ultra laid-back hip hop and a more minimal, bass-driven element, which comes through on tracks like Get Away. It’s held together by the impressive vocal range of Syd Tha Kid, capable of being both seductive and playful in the same breath.
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While the energy in the venue is undeniably positive, at times it feels a little too laid back, with much of the crowd locked into the subtlest of shuffles, and some of the tracks feeling as though they are blending into each other. But with a bit of audience call-and-response, the band ramp things up a bit, the audience gleefully joining in with the hook on Just Sayin/I Tried.
One of the centrepieces of Ego Death, when Girl eventually drops, much of the crowd goes into a temporary meltdown, revealing the primary reason why so many of them have come out this evening. A large chunk of the audience – female and male – seem completely besotted with Syd Tha Kid. As a front person and stage presence, the diminutive singer is refreshingly free of the clichés that occasionally accompany hip-hop and rnb. Both down-to-earth and ever-so-slightly otherworldly, vulnerable yet thoroughly in command of the crowd, she’s a compelling force to behold.
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