Danny Brown has been on a great run recently. A series of collaborations with hyperpop artists, including Jane Remover, underscores and Frost Children all culminated last year in his absolute blast of an album Stardust, diverging from the aggressive-sounding production of his previous work and towards the dance floor. And it’s obvious he’s having a good time—towards the end of his June 7th set at the Northcote Theatre, he remarks on just how much more he enjoys his recent music than his older work. He incredulously recounts a story of a fan who told him that 2016 album Atrocity Exhibition saved their life—“motherfucker,” he exclaimed, “it almost killed me!”
Three years of sobriety and a genre switch-up later, he’s having fun with his performances, dedicating his seemingly endless supply of energy to cartoonishly running around on stage and delivering each line with infectious excitement. A friend of mine, who hadn’t listened to Brown before, compared his vocal delivery to that of a “mischievous imp,” an image that sounds like a weird descriptor for such a powerful performance, but simultaneously makes perfect sense to me.
And the crowd shared this excitement; you wouldn’t think that a fancy-looking, town-hall-esque venue like the Northcote Theatre would be conducive to such a high-energy set, and yet the entire floor transformed into one of the livelier pits I’ve ever been in, the space filled with movement and near-blinding strobe lights. As soon as dancey Stardust track “Lift You Up” begun, the audience was swept up in a wave of movement, a surge of people stumbling their way forward in the crowd. And by the end of the night, I had been well and truly knocked around, myself and the people around me tired and grinning and covered in beer.
Speaking of the crowd, I was surprised at how diverse it was, feeling at least to me like it was made up of one half quiet queer people and one half incredibly loud men; the kind who throughout the concert were considerably less considerate with their moshing and would check their Snapchat multiple times over the course of the set. That’s not to say it wasn’t a great time—songs like “Smokin & Drinkin” and “Ain’t it Funny” were made so much more dynamic though Brown interacting with this raving crowd, rallying together a choir of shouts. And ultimately, the audience felt like their energy was kept to a respectful level—at least, much more than during Brown’s Brisbane show, which a friend who attended both told me was disrupted by a group of “eshays” climbing onto the stage during opener KEIL’s set.
Despite the general levels of engagement, however, it was a little disheartening to see just how many phones were out. During “Psychoboost,” both Brown and the crowd seemed to freeze up: the audience were transfixed on recording; and Brown, whilst animated during his own parts, simply idled around on stage during the Jane Remover verses. It’s not as if these collab songs were usually a low point in the set, either—the energy in “Copycats” was unmatched, Brown rapping about his love of stardom on a track featuring Underscores, an artist he has long respected and whose recent work is similarly focused on the idea of fame. Similarly, the choruses of “Green Light,” originally performed by hyperpop duo Frost Children, were sung by the audience, elevating the sections from just a mere backing track. “Psychoboost” was simply a brief low point, before the performance immediately got back into its rhythm.
The highlight of the set was ending track “All4U,” the closer from Stardust, finishing on an ode to positivity, a homage to his newfound love of his own music: “All I wanted was to be a rap star/ Didn’t know that I could make it this far,” he confesses. Much like earlier song “Copycats” and its infectious confidence—he describes how crowds “might go blind/ can’t block [his] shine”—Danny Brown shows off a sincere love for performing and the audiences it brings with it. His earlier thoughts on albums like Atrocity Exhibition were capped off by describing his relationship with his crowds: there’s a kind of “you help me, I help you” dynamic where he performs his older work for longtime fans, and the crowds serve as a space for him to have fun with the newer music. It’s really refreshing to see how mutually supportive audiences can be, cheering at the mention of Brown’s sobriety and endlessly grateful for his commitment to play the deep cuts.