Cypress Hill

Slipknot 6/18/22

This show had been on my radar ever since I learned about it but I figured it may be hard to get others to join in so held off on pulling the trigger since I knew it would not sell out and I could always pick up a cheap lawn ticket at the last minute. Enter Larry: he purchased four tickets to take the whole family then decided to be in Greece on show day so sold me the lot for $120. Bob and Kyle were supposed to join for the rare Saturday concert but had to back out so that left just Wayne and I plus two extra tickets that I had to dump on StubHub and probably still have not been paid for.

By the time we entered the cookie cutter amphitheater we had missed Ho99o9 and Cypress Hill had just taken the stage. We were supposed to be in the Lawn section but when we walked in there was no one guarding the 300 level so we just walked into that section and made ourselves at home in a couple empty seats, where we would end up staying for the remainder of the show. There was no Sen Dog as he apparently was dealing with the aftermath of a medial procedure. Considering they were down a key member and sandwiched in between a couple heavy metal bands they performed admirably. It certainly helped that every song they played was a banger. 

This was my eighth time seeing Slipknot but I had not seen them since Aftershock, which was almost three years prior to this. My first thought as the stage curtain disappeared was that they have not changed their stage setup for years but that thought quickly disappeared as I was getting pummeled with “Disasterpiece.” The songs and performance were as fierce as ever. Thankfully they are still putting out excellent new music that excites me. As the show went on I could not help but wonder why Mick’s hair is perpetually wet and just then he emptied a water bottle on his head. Speaking of hair I also noticed that Jim does way more exaggerated hair twirls than I remember him doing. This was Wayne’s first time seeing Slipknot and he just kept saying “This is dope!” Dope indeed. For my money the 1-2-3 punch of “Vermillion,” “Duality” and “Spit It Out” would have been worth it alone but then at the end of the show Corey Taylor announced the greatest encore of all as he promised new Slipknot music in a month…

SETLIST: Disasterpiece, Wait and Bleed, All Out Life, Sulfur, Before I Forget, The Chapeltown Rag, Dead Memories, Unsainted, The Heretic Anthem, Psychosocial, The Devil in I, Snuff, Vermillion, Duality, Spit It Out, People = Shit, Surfacing

Cypress Hill 8/14/21

Live music again at last! This was the first time I had seen Cypress Hill in 17 years but more importantly was my first in-person concert since March 12th of 2020. Anyone who has been paying attention knows this is probably the longest I have ever gone between concerts since I first started blowing out my eardrums so many years ago.

As a bonus this just happened to be the rare Saturday concert and at a venue not too far from my place. I mentioned this show to others but nobody gave me a solid yes so I convinced Ingrid to go with me but we waited until the last minute to buy tickets since the concert was not sold out. Ingrid’s cousin Shawn was at the show but actually had decent seats so we thought it was a lost cause to try to find her since our last-minute “cheap” seats were all the way “stage left” and pretty high up.  

Our seats were not the only high thing because by the time we got inside and to the front of the beer line the gummies I had taken in the Uber ride over started to take hold, which meant it was time to find our seats. Once we got to our seats we realized other people had decided to make themselves at home in them. Since the concert was not sold out this was not a big deal as there were plenty of open seats for us to slide into. By the time this went down we caught the last couple songs of opener Atmosphere.

Between bands we ended up meeting up with Shawn and followed her to her section where there were two open seats right next to her with our name on them, which ended up being in the first row right behind the sound guy so we could not have asked for better seats. I kept waiting for someone to come kick us out of the seats but nobody ever did!

Cypress Hill still has it. They definitely lead by example when it comes to smoking the reefer and the crowd gladly followed suit by creating a giant marijuana cloud over the venue just like every other time I have seen them. I got a chuckle out of the fact this was the same venue that happened to be the only time I ever got caught with a doobie and now here everyone was openly smoking the now legal cheeba. At one point Cypress Hill brought a giant inflatable king onstage as the centerpiece of their decorum. This occasion also featured a live drummer and at one point B-Real joined in. I don’t remember the entire setlist but I do remember them playing “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That,” “When the Shit Goes Down,” “Hand On the Glock,” How I Could Just Kill A Man,” “A to the K” and “Insane In The Brain.”

Prophets of Rage 10/15/16

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It seems I am destined to see Rage Against the Machine every 10 years in one form or another. I was lucky enough to see them at the Gorge in 1997 before they broke up the first time, in San Francisco in 2007 during a short-lived reunion/one-off show and now as Prophets of Rage with the instrumental core intact plus B-Real from Cypress Hill and Chuck D from Public Enemy filling in on vocal duties for Zack de la Rocha. Essentially this was as close as I was going to get to see Rage again for the foreseeable future so Bob and I got a ticket. This was one of those shows that tickets went on sale for way in advance of the show so by the time the show came around Bob had to bow out. Since most of the people that are down to go to concerts with me no longer live in San Diego, finding someone to take the vacant ticket presented more of a challenge than I originally anticipated even though the original date was changed from Sunday to Saturday night. After much effort I ended up convincing my beautiful not-so-into-metal wife to go with me because AWOLNATION was opening and I agreed to drive so she could drink.

After drinking premade Costco margaritas (deceptively strong) in the parking lot we started to hear a band playing inside the amphitheater. It was a band named Wakrat and as we made our way to our seat I realized that this three piece band was being led on vocals and bass by none other than the bass player from Rage, Tim Commerford. I also quickly realized that the entire lawn section of the amphitheater had been completely closed due to low attendance, which I have never seen before. It was cool for anyone that bought a lawn ticket because they were upgraded to the 300 level for free. It was not cool for us since we basically overpaid for the 300 level seats we already had. The highlight of Wakrat was during the finale when Tim Commerford dove into drums and wrestled with the drummer.

Next up was AWOLNATION. I am a casual fan that had never seen them but this was especially cool since I learned the drummer was Isaac Carpenter, who I went to high school with back in the Tri-Cities. He was a year younger but still to this day was one of the best guitar players I ever saw at the ripe age of about 15 shredding with Oil Can Boy before he turned drummer for Loudermilk/Gosling.

After a short intermission DJ Lord came onto the stage by himself and worked his way through about a 15 minute mashup of several popular songs before the rest of Prophets came on. B-Real was dressed up like a sheik with sunglasses and the band ripped into Public Enemy’s “Prophets of Rage.” All in all it was kind of like seeing three bands at once with the set being fairly balanced between songs from Public Enemy, Cypress Hill and Rage Against the Machine. I was impressed with how well the dual vocals worked on the Rage songs in place of Zack. “(Rock) Superstar” was killer with the instrumentation of Rage backing it up. Since this was the last stop of the tour they also had a surprise up their sleeve: they brought out Sen Dog for two Cypress Hill songs! At one point the members of Rage left Chuck D, B-Real and DJ Lord to do a mashup of Cypress Hill and Public Enemy songs before the “rock” came back to kick our asses back where they came from with songs like “Bullet in the Head” and “Killing in the Name.” Good shit.

SETLIST: DJ Lord Intro, Prophets of Rage, Guerilla Radio, Cochise/She Watch Channel Zero, Bombtrack, Miuzi Weighs a Ton, (Rock) Superstar, Know Your Enemy, Bombtrack, How I Could Just Kill a Man, Testify, Sleep Now in the Fire, Bullet in the Head, Cypress Hill/Public Enemy Mashup: By the Time I Get to Arizona/Hand on the Pump/Can’t Truss It/Insane in the Brain/Bring the Noise/I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That/Welcome to the Terrordome/Jump Around, Take the Power Back, People of the Sun, No Sleep Til Brooklyn/Fight the Power/The Party’s Over, Bulls on Parade, Killing in the Name

Street Scene 8/28/04

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Day Two of Street Scene. Randomly I remember having a Chipotle burrito here for the first time with guacamole. I’ve not had one without guacamole since. This was the day there was a fiasco because the trolley ran right through the parking lot where the event was and at some point there were so many people trying to get to one of the stages that the trolley was blocked. I remember watching Eek-A-Mouse because Dee is into reggae, which worked out nicely to stake a spot for Cypress Hill. For this performance they had lost the two guitarists I had previously seen them with and went back to just DJ Muggs, Sen Dog and B-Real. Lots of marijuana smoke in the air but if you know anything about Cypress Hill then you already knew that. I got my fill before the main attraction for me: Foo Fighters. I had only saw them once before and had not seen them since the release of One by One. The picture of Dave Grohl in the red shirt was taken around this time period but not at this show. I included it because it invokes the main moment that sticks out in my memory. He strapped on this tuned down Dale Earnhardt Jr. Budweiser guitar (apparently given to him by Dale Jr.) and ripped into “Stacked Actors.” Awesome. There was also a moment during their set where some guy jumped up on the stage and Dave said something along the lines of “you’ve got the balls to jump on the stage but do you have the balls to show the audience your balls?” The guy did it and Dave said “You’re awesome dude. Nice balls. Now get the fuck off my stage.” I think P.O.D. ended up not being at this show for some reason but I do remember seeing some of Jack Johnson’s set.

Lollapalooza 7/4/95

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The nights were very long that summer and I smoked a lot of pot. I was looking for something in my dad’s closet and came across a brick of weed. This was more than I had ever seen and I could not resist but pinch a little something off of it. Once I got it back to my bedroom and broke it up, it turned into a quarter of an ounce! This kept our stoner appetites alive for a few months. At this point in my life I had started seeing a fiery redhead named Daisy who I had met through my friend Jackie. She was the first girl that I ever really cared about. I was smitten. She was a few years younger but seemed much wiser than her years. She was a prototypical rock chick who happened to play the piano since an early age. She was probably a big reason Marvin and I decided to attend Lollapalooza 95’. There were bands playing that we wanted to see and we had missed the year before because it occurred on the first day of school. Ironically 94’ was the year Nirvana was supposed to headline. We had also missed the magical 93’ lineup that showcased Alice In Chains, Tool, and Rage Against the Machine. Jackie, Daisy, and their friend J.R. had decided to go up the night before and camp. I later found out that on that night Daisy had fooled around with someone at the campground, which is what eventually broke us up. The temperature on the 4th of July was particularly hot that year. Beck was the first band to perform that I really cared about. This is about the time he had broke into the mainstream with “Loser.” The next band that I wanted to see was Cypress Hill. They came out on stage with a 15 foot bong and they were also the first band I had ever seen toke up on stage. The next band I wanted to see was Hole. Courtney Love was a mess because of Kurt’s death and acted appropriately. She kept taking her top off and berating the crowd but overall put on a decent show. The headliner that year was Sonic Youth. I was not and still am not that big of a fan but they definitely impressed me that night.