Last night, Death Grips came to the Electric Factory in the great city of Philadelphia, PA.
To a few people that know the band, I told them my plans… Enter the city, find the spot, and try not to die. However, I received no jealousy or ticket inquiries, only prayers for my safety, and an occasional “good luck.”
It’s hard to put this band into a genre, or even call them a band for that matter. Death Grips is a group of men from Sacramento, CA, consisting of MC Ride (Stefan Burnett), Zach Hill, and Andy Morin. Their music is hardcore hip-hop, electronic, and punk rock all at the same time.
The show started at 8:30, and the boys arrived just as MC Ride was gearing up to say his first words. We charged the stage, and hit a brick wall of bodies. Our crew soon realized this would be unlike any Tame Impala, Kishi Bashi, or Tyler, the Creator concert.
Flesh to flesh, and sweat on sweat we slowly worked our way toward the stage, MC Ride twinkling in our eyes. “Get Got” (one of their more popular tunes) started to play, and the crowd turned into the Death Star’s garbage compactor. But C3PO and R2D2 were not at the Electric Factory to save us, only less popular DG songs to create short lulls, and second-long rests between sets.
DG played “Get Got”, “Guillotine”, “Takyon”, “I’ve Seen Footage”, “The Fever”, “Bubbles Buried In The Jungle”, “80808”, and much more that I cannot recall at this moment (if I see a setlist online I’ll add it to this page).
Song by song, MC Ride belted and screamed at the enraged, but still awe-struck crowd. Zach Hill was insane on the drums, but unfortunately he and Andy Morin were afterthoughts while the crowd focused on MC Ride, and trying not to be trampled.
The show went for about an hour and a half straight. No dialogue between the crowd and band, straight down to business.
By the end of the show I had anchored myself to the gate separating the stage and the crowd, with my friends Dom and Brendan by my side (somehow?). We looked at each other with disbelief in our eyes… That’s MC Ride, we thought with a girlish giggle. Finally, “No Love” played. The drums beat loud and low as Burnett started becoming less human, and more primal. With every bit of energy we had left we jumped, and screamed right back at him. He collapsed to the ground (we wished we could too) and the show was over. MC Ride stood, looked at us for one last time, dropped the mic, and the band exited the stage
There was no time to take photos or videos–let alone breath. Ringing our shirts out in the parking lot, sweat covered the ground. Ministry was still scheduled to play, however the DG crowd might as well been Maroon 5 groupies compared to the people that Ministry was drawing through the doors.
Whatever the case, it was an amazing, nearly out-of-body experience. Watch our favorite Youtube video (so far) from this concert (2:33 is fucking insane), and check out our shitty iPhone pictures/clips below.
