College students shouldn’t have any reason to feel extra young on Commonwealth Avenue, a street that is jam-packed with undergraduates on a day-to-day basis. However, the line outside of the Paradise Rock Club Tuesday night, at the tail end of Boston University’s West Campus, overpowered the student demographic. A cry of “I’m not 45 yet, that’s next week” from a man waiting in line set the scene as the crowd filed in to see the hip-hop legends Cypress Hill.
Cypress Hill attracted the same crowd Tuesday that supported its music in the band’s early ’90s prime. Before a crowd was predominantly male, its members were uniformly clad in black hooded sweatshirts with black caps pulled down over their eyes.
The concert was part of a four-city tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of the group’s album “III (Temples of Boom),” in an attempt to recapture its glory days. With it, Cypress Hill brought Immortal Technique as its opening act. As the crowd waited in anticipation of Cypress Hill’s classic songs, it was treated with the rapper’s warm-up performance.
Immortal Technique seemed to keep with the style of Cypress Hill’s Latino hip-hop, which was crucial in energizing the crowd. However, it was the subject matter of his raps that didn’t correlate with the mood of the evening. The rapper and activist used his music to project a myriad of issues into the atmosphere. Abortion, marriage-equality and immigration are just a snapshot of the topics that Immortal Technique chose to share.
Though Immortal Technique promoted positive ideas about morality, change and a more accepting world, the breadth of his subject matter left these buzzwords falling flat. Perhaps this wasn’t the time and place to encourage change for some of the world’s current problems.
Cypress Hill finally took the stage, and boomed in with the same playfulness and energy that the crowd remembered and expected. The band jumped into its most popular songs, starting with “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” “Dr. Greenthumb” and “Insane in the Brain.”
The group’s sound was instantly recognizable, as the exaggeratedly high and nasal voices whined through raps and rhymes. Cypress Hill’s music sent listeners to the hazy and warm cities of California, with a mix of heavy bass and psychedelic elements. The vocalists even sang some lyrics in Spanish in a salute to the prevalent Latin culture in California.
B-Real and Sen Dog each concentrated on a side of the crowd and pitted those sides against one another. The rappers encouraged each side to get more “live” than the other and had the crowd chanting their lyrics at different times.
This technique had their fans competing for approval, but resulted in a cacophony of fun as the rappers ordered a union between the two sides.
Another competition, this time between DJ Muggs on the turntables and Eric Bobo on percussion, created a musical interlude as the rappers retreated to change and take a quick break. There was a “beat-off” between scratching records and the pounding rhythms from the drums and bongos.
This performance displayed the band members’ virtuosity, and reminded the crowd of the skill that is the foundation of their popular anthems.
By the end of the set, the band had deviated into a hardcore repertoire, which verged on rock music. Cypress Hill played its song “(Rock) Superstar,” which kicked off this change in tone.
These influences were huge in the early ’90s, when distorted guitar-driven accompaniment was all the rage. This change gave the rappers a burst of energy that made their light-hearted temperament turn toward aggression.
Overall, Cypress Hill came back in a blaze of glory, and the fans were close behind. The band inspired the older crowd to shout out the lyrics as if its members were carefree teenagers sneaking out to see their favorite act. Seeing this crowd feel transported to a different time through music is a nod to the strength of Cypress Hill’s sound.
As college students, we can’t help but wonder if we’ll be attending a Kendrick Lamar or Kanye West concert in 20 years and remembering the power that hip-hop had over us. The past and the present can be melded and twisted by the power of music and memory, and this concert proved that Cypress Hill has not been forgotten.
Was a great show! As far as Immortal Technique goes, any real hip-hop fan knows what he is going to say on stage before you get there. It was the perfect dose of reality before Cypress Hill.