Die Antwoord + Tom Shorterz @ The Institute, 15th January 2015
Crazy, awesome, weird, amazing, insane….. Choose any of these words and put them in any order and you might come close to describing Die Antwoord‘s live show tonight. Talking to others in The Institute, it was clear that people had travelled far and wide to see the show. The chap next to me had made a six hour round trip from Swansea for the sold out gig.
For those that don’t know, Die Antwoord are from South Africa and their sound can best be described as rap-rave and is centred around a South African counter culture movement called zef, to quote Die Antwoord’s Yolandi Visser “It’s associated with people who soup their cars up and rock gold and shit. Zef is, you’re poor but you’re fancy. You’re poor but you’re sexy, you’ve got style.”
I’ve been listening to Die Antwoord for the best part of five years and even I’m not sure of how seriously I’m supposed to take them, one thing is for sure though and that’s that they have a very unique sound and image, and I was looking forward to my first time seeing them live.
Local DJ Tom Shorterz did a great job of warming the crowd up and by the time Die Antwoord were due on stage the atmosphere in the room was already starting to feel great.
The lights dimmed, and the man mountain that is DJ Hi-Tek bounded onto the stage in his oversized fluorescent orange tracksuit and a mask that had more than a passing resemblance to Sloth from the goonies. He opened the night with the old school hip hop sounding “DJ Hi-Tek Rulz” the lyrical content of which I’m not sure I can write on here! After this introduction we were joined by Yolandi and Ninja, both in matching tracksuits. The room pretty much went off from the start and the energy that these guys bring means that atmosphere was relentless from the beginning of the night all the way through to the end.
At various points throughout the night Ninja launched himself off the stage and into the crowd for a spot of surfing before being pulled back by security. Although they are out to promote the new album, the set is a decent mix of songs from all three past records. At one point after “Ugly Boy” all goes quiet Ninja appears on stage by himself, at this point he pulled his trousers down and goes a capella with a track from the new album “Raging Zef Boner” wearing just a pair of boxer shorts.
Halfway in to this song, what can only be described as a giant Casper the ghost, but with an even more giant penis appeared to the left of the stage where it remained all night. I lost count of the number of costume changes throughout the night and at one point Yolandi donned a hoodie with the word Brum all over it, which I thought was a nice touch. Ninja spent a little while on stage in just a pair of Dark Side of the Moon boxers..
A cappelas from both Yolandi and Ninja during the set proved that however seriously you take them and their music, they can both more than hold their own when it comes to spitting bars and rhyming. With a sound that ranges from heavy hip hop beats through to dub step and trance, the room was on form all night and I’m not sure there was a moment that it stopped bouncing, but “Baby’s On Fire” was the point at where the whole room went completely nuts..
I imagine that my review of the night probably sounds a little bizarre, and I expect that if anyone is not familiar with them who had wandered into the gig, would have wondered what the hell was going on. There was no chance of that as every single ticket appeared to have been snapped up by one of Die Antwoord’s hardcore fans!
These guys were ace tonight, and as hard as I try, I can’t pull a single negative from it. They went in hard and the crowd went in hard too. The result being one of the most energetic and relentless live shows I’ve ever seen. Also, possibly one of the best live shows I’ve seen too!
DJ Hi-Tek and Ninja, but more so Yolandi, I think I love you a little bit…
Review – John Dent
Photos – Lee Allen