I have finally seen Earl Sweatshirt live. It was a long time coming. He had a show up in London back in June 2013 that I will always regret not going to. His warmup act that travelled the road with him that year was none other than the New York Trio, Ratking. The trio ended up breaking up around a year later, so I squandered one of the only chances I had of seeing them live. Am I still angry about it till this day, quite possibly.

Earl’s set definitely lived up to my expectation but didn’t surpass it. It was only about thirty to forty minutes long unfortunately, so I was definitely left wanting more. I suppose that’s what all good salesmen do though, but Earl isn’t a salesman and this wasn’t some form of marketing event 101. I was at a gig that I paid a fairly hefty price for to see my favourite artist perform. I managed to get some cool snaps through the Cybershot once again which is always a plus. However, not being right underneath Mr Sweatshirt’s nose meant that the pictures that I did get lacked the juiciness I was after. You can’t always win though (some occasional wins would be preferable though). In terms of his set, I found myself enjoying most tracks but a lot of them I didn’t even know all that well. Luckily, I could relate to his impeccable choice of instrumentals which had the crowd swaying from side to side. Sadly, as his last track Fire in the Hole played, a fight broke out in front of me creating some sort of commotion that brought me out of the performance. Some people are just selfish. A track so tame and laid back that surely should have prevented any sort of violence from breaking out but alas, two men clearly lacking in emotional development jostled each other to the floor, taking a piece of enjoyment out of everyone’s night who were unlucky enough to be stood around them. I’m not bitter though …

Interestingly enough, Earl finished off by playing Future’s LOVE YOU BETTER from his latest album. Earl was the one to put me onto Future back in 2014. I was listening of his longer interviews when he was asked which artist’s he was listening to when he mentioned Future’s now classic Monster Mixtape. To this day both Throw Away and Codeine Crazy never fail to gauge some sort of emotion out of me. His stage presence was everything I had expected. I kept thinking about how I was watching one of the greatest wordsmiths on earth. His mastery of words is one that runs through his blood and is so evident within the music he creates.

Action Bronson then came on with The Alchemist to do their thing and they were very entertaining. They played the electric guitar song which was fun. Alchemist showed off his unquestionably great selection of instrumentals which had the crowd grooving and moving throughout the entirety of the set. Overall, I would give this gig an overall 7.4/10. I could have done with seeing Lord Apex’s set but as I said beforehand; you win some, you lose some.