D O double Geez

On Sunday I saw Snoop Dogg live in concert for the first time. I had high expectations (pun intended of course). I knew not to arrive for at least an hour after the show time printed on the ticket. Just as I suspected, the opening act, The Game, was just going onstage when I walked into the Pacific Coliseum. I could tell the marijuana smoke had been filling up the place for at least an hour already, and this is what I had expected having heard the urban legends of smoke so thick at Snoop's concerts that one could not even see across the arena. I could see across the arena but almost everyone seated around me was either rolling, smoking or already baked. The Game was better than I expected. He got the crowd hyped up with the usual ode to fallen rappers and singers bit. He got all the testosterone pumping by getting the entire Coliseum to chant "suck my d*ck" to everyone he hates. He had some cute, toned and extremely flexible dancers flanking him and riding around the stage on cool lowrider bikes. He even chugged two bottles of champagne (ok, maybe more like one after he sprayed the first bit onto the front-rowers) in less than 20 seconds. Then he pointed at some hoes in the audience and his people began herding the groupies backstage for their 15 minutes of fluffing.

Then came the disappointing 2 hour gap between The Game and Snoop, during which several fights broke out and my drug enduced paranoia made me worry about a possible riot. I heard later that Snoop did not even arrive until 10pm, then dilly-dallied his way to the stage by about 10:40. The ticket said "show at 7pm". Haha.

Snoop's act started with a short soft-core porn film on the large projector screens. Of course he is the star and gets to fondle two pretend lesbians. Honestly I thought the film was a staller because Snoop wasn't going to show up at all. Then his bony ass finally slithered onto the stage. I must admit I was probably more excited than I would have been if I had not waited so long and started thinking he was going to let us down. And I do like him, I really do.

He performed all the classics and current hits, breaking only for his DJ on the projector screens from backstage acting as "DJ EZ Dick", a character from Snoop's debut CD Doggystyle. That whole thing was kinda lame. I would have preferred a real DJ on the stage doing some intricate scratching demonstrations. On top of all that, the crowd was so burnt out by the time Snoop performed that they weren't too eager to participate in his crowd-hyping activities. That was the funniest part. Snoop better take into consideration the fact that the majority of his fans are heavy duty pot smokers next time he makes an arena full of them wait two hours to see him. By the time he was singing his goodbye song, people were already filing out of the arena. There would be no encores, the stoners needed to go home to bed.