Ice Cube/Snoop Dogg concert review
Published in The Calgary Herald on January 18, 2007
Review
Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Kurupt and Belly at the Stampede Corral Thursday night.
Nick Lewis
Calgary Herald
Live rap shows are a dodgy thing at best, and even the most ardent and
optimistic fans often anticipate weaker versions of their favourite tunes up
close and personal. Tunes that sound amazing blasting from a row of
silver-rimmed SUVs on the way into the show can sound downright swampy and
incomprehensible at the show itself.
Would it be more of the same in a double bill concert boasting two of hip-hop’s
most prolific west coast MCs? Were Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg in the tinny
Stampede Corral worth $40?
In short — definitely for Cube, not so much for headliner Snoop.
I’m willing to overlook the fact that it took me almost an hour to even get
into the venue (first I wasn’t accredited, then I was but only for Snoop, etc.)
And so I missed the first two acts, Belly and Kurupt, and was finally allowed
in mid-way through Cube’s set.
I walked in as the middle eastern loop from Smoke Some Weed tore through the
monitors, as patrons puff, puff, passed amber-lit roaches and exhaled a
troposphere of weed so thick you could climb it like a beanstalk.
Cube himself was fantastic, dynamic, loud, gruff, fluid — all those things you
hoped he would be — as he tore through a killer version of N.W.A.’s Straight
Outta Compton, a banging You Can Do It, a solid We Be Clubbin’ and a
trunk-rattling Go To Church.
“I love Calgary, man,” he barked out to the crowd. “This is my favourite city
in Canada, homies.”
After a six-year hiatus from music, the 38-year-old South Central L.A. rapper
showed he didn’t miss a beat as he fired up the crowd with a short but
incendiary set, full of bass crunch and vitriolic raps.
It was almost an hour after Cube left that Snoop hit the stage, and the
momentum was clearly lost. Flanked by a drummer, synth player, bassist, backup
singers, backup rappers and dancers, most of whom seemed to be passing joints
between them, the 36-year-old Long Beach rapper lazily drawled through new hits
and favourites.
He held a plastic cup in one hand and a diamond-encrusted mic in the other as
he asked, “Does anybody know my favourite drink?” He then launched into a
pretty good version of Gin & Juice, Dr. Dre’s G-funk synth chirping though the
stadium.
Snoop then tore through abbreviated versions of 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P., Nuthin’ But
a “G” Thang, 187 and Vato, most of which had echoey beats and
hard-to-understand rhymes.
But considering the heavy cloud cover at the Corral, few seemed to mind.
