The Forum hosted the West Coast rappers Cypress Hill for their Soundwave sideshow in what promised to be a very entertaining gig given the groups favourite activities. The venue gradually filled up with mostly late 20 to early 30-year-olds who were pretty relaxed as they waited for the opening band to start.
Melbourne hip-hop group Speech Therapy opened and slowly won the crowd over with their beats, even if their sound was very much like any other group you’d hear on Triple J. The two rappers were talented and know what works for them, but had an in issue that they were rapping over the lines of each other’s words. If it was used less often it would have more impact.
Towards the end of the set, Speech Therapy were self-deprecating when they encouraged the crowd to “tell us to fuck off” so Cypress Hill could get on the stage.
After a 20 minute wait, the headliners jumped on stage to a overwhelming response from their fans. Cypress Hill’s energy was infectious; B-Real and Sen Dog kept running around and urging the crowd to get involved.
The sight of B-Real smoking weed on stage was a pure rock star moment, and this only encouraged the already enthusiastic audience to get out their own joints and smoke away.
The fans were delighted to hear them play the majority of their successful album Black Sunday. ‘Lick a shot’, ‘Cock The Hammer’ and ‘When The Shit Goes Down’ were all well received.
B-Real’s nasally vocals sounded great live and worked extremely well with Sen Dog’s deeper voice.
Any songs to do with weed (which is a fair slice of Hill’s back catalogue) including ‘I Wanna Get High’ and ‘Hits From The Bong’ had the crowd in raptures; and it was a perfect excuse to light another joint and pass it around.
Halfway through the set DJ Julio G and drummer Eric Bobo delivered an awesome section of 80s-style hip-hop with plenty of scratches and cuts on the deck.
The crowd truly loved the beats and danced along; which was great to see given (former member) DJ Muggs wasn’t the man providing the catchy beats.
‘I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That’ was the best song of the evening, with bands powerful performance and the crowd’s energy in singing along.
The encore was a mixed bag with the first two songs being new numbers that are heavily dubstep based. They both sounded like attempts in trying to capture a new audience rather than please the older fans, and were largely forgettable despite lyrically being about marijuana.
However, about half of the venue were high enough to enjoy it. The next song was ‘Rise Up’, a song co-written with former Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello, which went off its tits.
It’s a song that would fit perfectly in Rage Against the Machine’s backlist and the crowd bounced along and rocked out.
Cypress Hill ended with their single ‘(Rock) Superstar’ from the 2000 album Skulls & Bones, which made the punters jump up and roar.
At the end of the night, everyone went home a little high from the music as much as the abundance of weed.
Cypress Hill are an awesome live band with plenty of energy, they’re fun live and their buzz is impossible to not feel in the crowd. The fans’ robust energy and the constant cloud of marijuana were significant factors in making Cypress Hill’s gig an unforgettable experience.
