Tyler, the Creator and Odd Future at Fillmore Miami Beach

A wild pack of wolves took over the Fillmore Miami Beach last night. They ran around the stage howling, ripping into each other and everything around them. Security didn’t know what to do.

Or at least, that’s how things usually go at an Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All show, especially when it’s frontman Tyler, the Creator at the helm. But last night’s performance at the Fillmore, fun as it was, could never shake a certain air of stuffiness. Whether it was the poor sound quality, the gang’s silent monitors, or the heavy-handed security keeping kids from letting loose, things just never got to go full 11.
If you’ve followed Tyler and his wild band of buddies at all, you know that they’re different. Musically speaking, there isn’t much like them out there. Even among their ranks, the OF kids have varying sounds and styles to offer.

Tyler is the most rambunctious of the bunch. He’s especially beloved by the collective’s young followers. And by young, we mean really young — Tyler may be days shy of 25, but the average age of last night’s attendees was about 14.
Tyler never bothers with an opening act, so when the ticket says “8 p.m. doors open,” you get there at 8 p.m. sharp.

By 8:20, Odd Future DJ and sidekick Taco was whipping the crowd into a screaming mess, playing Kendrick Lamar and Drake songs for thousand-strong sing-alongs. It kind of felt like being at summer camp, if white kids got a pass to say the n-word at summer camp.

By 9:30, there were those first shaky chords of “Bitch Suck Dick.” The screams of young girls reached a fever pitch as Tyler’s favorite hypeman Jasper emerged to drop his verse. By the time Tyler showed up, talkin’ about getting ponies, all hell had broken loose.

Or at least, it sort of had. The Fillmore must have heard kids like to go nuts at Tyler shows, because they had the pit sectioned out and roped off, making sure to leave plenty of empty space from section to section. Nobody got hurt, that we know of, but neutering the crowd’s moshability stymied OFWGKTA’s rowdy communal vibe.
Also, Tyler would not stop talking about how shitty the sound was.

“This is so lame to me,” he said, constantly asking the sound man to turn up his mic, complaining that he couldn’t hear himself at all. “I want to give you guys the best performance, but…”

More often than not, his raspy voice was hard to make out over the muddy bass from the Fillmore’s speakers. Good thing every Tyler show plays like a Rocky Horror theater presentation. Even without the cues, OF fans know when to yell “cunt” or “bitch” or “Syd, shut the fuck up,” and they definitely know when to chant “Fuck that, Golf Wang.”
So things were a little shaky. But in all fairness, it wasn’t an off show. The crowd and the artists still had plenty of back and forth. A beaming young woman was brought on the stage for an impromptu body autograph so she could finish her tattoo, as the sign she held high had begged for.

The fans also got some backstory on the Kanye verse off “Smuckers.” Essentially, Tyler was scared it would suck after hearing the wavy intro, but he was thankfully blown away by the rest of it. 

Later, some cool kid threw a homemade Cherry Bomb doll on the stage, made in the style of Tyler’s new album cover, and there was a really fun exchange during which the OF guys started spraying water in the crowd, picking out dudes on the second tier, and betting them $10 to actually catch the doll.
Right from the get, Tyler asked if Miami was better than Jacksonville. Apparently, that show was pretty damn live. Miami would chant “Fuck Jacksonville!” for the rest of the night, as the Creator reminded, “That’s on you to make that statement true.”

He told us that the sound guy was fuckin’ up hard, but he never said the Miami crowd wasn’t wild enough. By “Tamale,” the last song of the night, the kids learned how to break through security’s stronghold, and it had begun to feel like a real OFWGKTA show.

Just in time for curtain call. We hope Tyler was proud.

Tyler, the Creator’s Setlist:
-"Bitch Suck Dick"
-"Deathcamp"
-"Tron Cat"
-"Sam (is Dead)"
-"Bimmer"
-"Jamba"
-"IFHY"
-"DOMO 23"
-"Fucking Young"
-"Yonkers"
-"Smuckers"
-"The Brown Stains of Darkeese Latifah Part 6-12" (Remix)
-"48"
-"Rella"
-"She"
-"Oldie"
-“Tamale"