For reasons unknown to anyone other than Snoop, Snoop Dogg played two shows at small venues in NYC, when he could, presumably, fill much larger venues. The first show was at a bowling alley in Brooklyn and the second was on the auspicious date 4/20 at Irving Plaza.
4/20 being Snoop’s favorite day of the year I expected to see a show that I could catalog under ‘epic’. I showed up at the venue at 8pm with the assumption that Snoop, the lone act on the bill, would go on at 9pm as the ticket stated. Fortunately I received intel. that there was little likelihood of Snoop getting anywhere near the stage anytime before 11. So I left and came back at 11:30 to find that the poor souls (having not received the same intel.) in the crowded venue were exhausted having been standing around the seat-less venue for 3+ hours or so, dicking around buying $7 beers, without even an opening act for a diversion. To add insult to injury, most had undoubtedly burned through whatever ‘chronic’ they managed to smuggle in that they were hoping to use to commune with Snoop during strategic parts of the show.
There are few worst levels of hell then being hours early to a venue that does not allow re-entry – this place was wall-to-wall with such victims. Snoop ultimately cruised in sometime past 12:30pm, by which point people were leaving the venue in exhaustion probably having been there over 4 hours. “We gots jobs to go to!”
I haven’t been to many rap shows, but one thing I have noticed is that the acts seldom feel the need to finish a song. Crickey, now that I think of it, this applies to the recent Jay-Z post. I can’t recall going to a rock show where the set was composed of a mega-mix of a band’s catalog. Anyway, the show was fun enough I suppose and featured quite a few covers.
[audio: http://www.thesoundofindie.com/archive/2010/20100518/SD-DropIt.mp3|titles=Jump Around/Drop It Like Its Hot (Live)|artists=Snoop Dogg]Download: Snoop Dogg – Jump Around/Drop It Like Its Hot (Live)
