Cypress Hill Smokeout Festival - NOS Events Center - 3/3/12
See also:
Colin Young-Wolff The star of the show, and B-Real of Cypress Hill
*Our slideshow of Cypress Hill Smokeout Festival 2012
*Cypress Hill Rallies Medical Marijuana Advocates for Smokeout at City Hall (With Photos)
Cypress Hill Smokeout Festival with Rusko, Wiz Khalifa, Korn, Sublime with Rome, Thievery Corporation
NOS Events Center, San Bernardino
3/3/12
Love was in the San Bernardino air Saturday. Well, that, and the scent of chili cheese fries and pizza mingling with weed smoked out of Grape Swisher Sweets.
Considering Cypress Hill long has dabbled in other genres, plucking and tossing elements from Latin, metal, rock, reggae and psychedelic into their pot, it's no surprise their annual Smokeout Festival embraces them, too. In 2010, French/Spanish singer Manu Chao shared the day with Deadmau5. This year, in anticipation of his upcoming collaborative EP with Cypress, brostep brah Rusko was billed alongside weed connoisseurs Curren$y and Wiz Khalifa.
In addition to the requisite "I [heart sign] Weed" t-shirts layered with leis of fake marijuana leaves, girls in fishnets, fuzzy boots and fluorescent short shorts (shout out to the few who gave a nod to the home team by sticking on weed leaf pasties) wandered the fairgrounds. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to HARD L.A. 
Colin Young-Wolff Weed pasties. You're welcome.
In general, the sets weren't exciting, but doubtful many of the almost 20,000 attendees cared much. Of course, marijuana strains of every color and creed were being smoked -- and in such ingenious ways as on a HighPad -- but the increasing sloppiness indicated more than puffing and passing were going on. Medics had to roll a couple people out in wheelchairs, but hey, at least it wasn't from fighting.
Rebecca Haithcoat That's really an iPad, and they really cut holes into it in order to smoke out of it.
Wiz Khalifa
Colin Young-Wolff
Drug Most Likely Consumed by Crowd: Weed. Duh.
Overheard: "One already on the ground," as a girl collapsed onto the concrete. It was maybe 5:15 p.m.
One of Forbes' Hip Hop Cash Kings, Khalifa made 11 million dollars last year and recently predicted this year he'd pull in 100 mill. Not that potheads are given to exaggeration or anything, but Pittsburgh's king of rap has given us reason to believe he'll eventually hit that goal. After disappointing most of the longtime fans who set him up for his payday with last year's Rolling Papers, his debut album under Atlantic, Khalifa recently wrote an earnest blog post announcing his intention to get back to his roots. Maybe not the most artistically daring decision, but Khalifa always has had one of the smartest teams in the business: while the tracks he played Saturday from his upcoming mixtape, Taylor Allderdice, were reminiscent of the breakout Kush and Orange Juice, he'll probably continue experimenting on his next official album.
Meanwhile, he keeps refining his stage persona into a chiller Axl Rose. Wearing slim white pants and a billowing paisley button-down, and looping a long scarf around his microphone stand, he snaked his way through a balanced set of new, mainstream ("5 O'clock") and old ("Never Been," "Mezmorized") hits. He was less lively than he used to be - no trademark stripping off his shirt to show his completely tatted-up chest - but then again, he's about to become a family man.
Cypress Hill
Colin Young-Wolff Sen Dog, Rusko and B-Real pre-gaming
Drug Most Likely Consumed by Crowd: Weed. Again, duh.
Overheard: "Okay, enough with the politics." -B-Real
You gotta give it to Cypress Hill. In a genre where most artists have a career span of one album - if they're lucky - the group's clocked 20 years and counting in the game. Much of that success has just as much to do with their incredibly smart marketing and branding (see B-Real's BReal.TV) as their willingness to collaborate and experiment.
But, as Sen Dog told us in an interview earlier that afternoon, the fans are always going to think the first album is the best. That thought seemed to guide their modest set (they gave themselves an hour as opposed to the 75- or 90-minute sets of other acts). "Illusions" is still badass, but those songs sampling War and Dusty Springfield sounded a lot cooler when we were kids, right?
Location Info
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National Orange Show Events Center
689 S. "E" St., San Bernardino, CA
Category: Music
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