Words/photos Joelle Reid
Brockhampton is an American musical collective formed in San Marcos, Texas, and seemed to have bought the ‘Lone Star’ energy with them as they played their first show in New Zealand – and what a show it was.
The popular American Boy Band led by Kevin Abstract, was in full form at Auckland’s Logan Campbell, the band are set to play next month’s Austin City Limit Festival but not without satisfying Kiwi fans of their only show here.
A treat for fans was their new album which had just dropped, the group playing brand new tunes off Iridescence. It was funny because nobody knew the songs, however in true Brockhampton style, the crowd got into it matching the groups onstage energy.
Shrouded in controversy with the sudden “removal” of Rapper Ameer Vann from the group after allegations of sexual misconduct, the band weren’t fazed and looked as if they were enjoying the attention from their newfound Kiwi fans.
It’s really impressive for a band to play music nobody’s heard before. I think this was mainly because they didn’t want music with Ameer’s’ vocal parts in it. Not a single person was standing, the biggest hit of the night was Boogie off their Saturation III album and the R&B tinged banger 1999 Wildflower which had the audience heaving.
It was friggin’ packed there wasn’t a lot of talking from the group to be honest, and there were a lot of members vying for attention, but the one that stood out was Kevin Abstract, he was a legend doing most of the communicating from the stage. The bars were straight fire, so clean, much like the recorded version but better.
The energy was infectious, everyone was into it. I feel the new album is an interesting direction into uncharted music territory, while the onstage visuals with ‘fire’ emblems added to the nights festive feel – even Amy Winehouse was projected up there for a bit – They had to ask the crowd to move a few times, but other than that it was a faultless night of Hip Hop.
Brockhampton was one of the best shows I’ve seen in long time, they put on a great show and overcompensated for the fact that no one knew what they were playing, they did it really well.
Each member bought their own energy and worked around other in unison. If I were to sum it up, I would say, “Energetic, exciting & loud”, really f**king loud. Just as it should be.
