The Book of Sifty

Cypress Hill Concert Rant 12:22PM

Managed to score some free tickets to the Cypress Hill concert in Wellington last night. Wicked show from Cypress Hill themselves, incredible energy with them bouncing around on the stage for the whole show, although I was specially impressed to see Eric Bobo, who was on stage doing live percussion for the band, and the guy who I think is the main reason for their continuing unique sound in the land of hip-hop (He's the son of legendary Cuban musician Willie Bobo, Eric Bobo has been playing professionally since the age of 5! And led his father's old group from the age of 16. He's also been live percussionist for the Beasties). Anyway.. totally wicked show from Cypress Hill..

But.. was a little disappointed with the rest of the show. So here comes the whine.

For some reason the event was presented by ZM FM. Why the hell they had anything to do with this I don't know. Can you imagine much Cypress Hill music fitting in with the dross commercial shite they play on their station? No. All I can say is obviously the local promoter knows nothing about the act themselves, and that showed throughout. (This is also a complaint I've heard several times before about mid sized international acts touring NZ - and some major dance acts)

Firstly the venue sucks. The queen's wharf event center is a tin shed that has the worst sound ever. Its got no character and generally sucks. The town hall, or even the overseas terminal (where I saw Basement Jaxx years ago) are better large venues. Surely for $65 a person they could find somewhere better? Or at least do more than a stage and a few lights?

Secondly the support acts were little 'samey', okay it's a hip-hop act, but that doesn't mean we need three rap acts that played basically the same stuff. Local act Stylus 77 were wicked .. on a rock tip.. but they played at 7.. (When Cypress hill played at 10pm!). The other acts were good .. but they were all a little similar. (Also the lame sound did them no favours). I was a little disappointed since there is plenty of wicked original NZ music that could have slipped in there, and been appropriate support for a very original band. Also it did little to hype the crowd up for the main act.. and ran over time pushing the last support act down to one song.

Then there was a pretty average MC between acts who kept yelling at the crowd like morons.. and managed to adhere to that MC clich' of ""can everybody give me a HO!?"" ""gimme a HO HO"" ""all the ladies in the house"" etc.. Cheesey.. Again it did nothing to the audience but generate the most average of responses.

Also for some bizarre reason that untalented bitch K-Lee (sp?*) turned up and mutilated a couple of tunes. Lame.

Still all of that doesn't bother me that much.


That why live concerts are so good ' you never know what to expect. You might be surprised by some of the support acts, and see something you like.. if they suck its not like your stuck with their CD or anything!

But what really pissed me off was the 'filler' music. Between all the support acts they had a wicked local DJ playing good choons.. BUT before (and after) the main act when they were moving the support acts turntables off the stage, some fool decided it was a good time to play some freakin ZM cheese.. Not even some R&B; dross but some offence cheap nasty commercial house. All I can think was the sound guys (normally 'sound guys' are renowned for having average music taste) or some ZM gimp decided to put it on.
FUCK! It was almost embrassing. No music would have been preferable to that.. and couldn't they have found SOME NZ music? All I can say is that it was only at about half normal volume.

* actually who cares how her name is spelt - she sucks..