'Up in Smoke' show was strange mix of music, misogyny and marijuana

08/17/2000

Mekeisha Madden; The News Tribune

The "Up in Smoke" concert at the Tacoma Dome Tuesday night was just that: smoky and hard to decipher.

And while the music was good - you gotta love it when Snoop Dogg does "G Thang" - the lineup was tight and the sets were appealing, this was mostly a concert for people who like to smoke weed.

The crowd of 20,516 was fun-loving and high-spirited. But let's be honest here: A lot of them were just plain high.

Everyone was patted down for weapons and cameras at the doors. But security must have missed what Snoop calls the "sticky icky icky."

"Getting high" was all the performers wanted to talk to the audience about. From the comedian who kept the crowd hyped between acts to Dr. Dre, "chronic" - a slang term for marijuana - and "blazing up" were the hot topics. Hence the tour's name: "Up in Smoke."

Although the rappers talked about being high, they seemed to be more in control than some of their fans.

People wouldn't get out of the aisles; women flashed their breasts, Mardi Gras style, on command; and at one point during the show, Snoop had to ask members of the audience to stop throwing CDs and other debris onto the stage.

"We can't see, and you could hurt somebody," he told the crowd. And the crowd actually stopped throwing stuff.

"Now enjoy the ... show," he continued.

That was just one of the mixed messages in the three-hour concert, which also featured the controversial towhead Eminem, rappers Warren G, Kurupt and Xzibit and singer Nate Dogg. (Ice Cube dropped off the tour last month to make a movie.)

Both comedian Alex Thomas and Snoop Dogg asked audience members not to fight. Thomas even said that the "Up in Smoke" tour - which ends Sunday in Denver after 41 shows - has had no incidents of stabbings or shootings.

But Eminem contradicted the anti-violence message in rap songs like "Kill You" and by beating up two blowup dolls that were supposed to be members of the Insane Clown Posse.

The mother of all hypocrisy was a 10-minute video featuring Dre and Snoop shooting the bad guys in a mock robbery. At the end, Snoop has a gun pointed at the head of one of the robbers. He looks into the camera and asks the audience if they want him to "Smoke him."

The crowd cheered him on.

And there was misogyny. A strong anti-woman message was prevalent in the video - which featured naked women and was banned when the tour stopped in Detroit - and many of the songs performed Tuesday night.

Most of the words are too explicit to repeat here; let's just say there were a lot of references to garden tools and female dogs.

Yet, it appeared that women made up about half the audience - unusual for a hip-hop show.

The lewd lyrics and the open drug use detracted from what otherwise was an entertaining show.

The sets were theatrical. There was a giant talking skull, two giant blowup hands with extended middle fingers and big balls of fire. Snoop even drove onto the stage in a '64 Chevy low-rider.

The show was well orchestrated, too. Lesser-known acts Kurupt and Xzibit were incorporated into Dre's act to avoid boring the audience with unknowns, like so many shows do.

The show started and ended on time, and - after a tribute to deceased rap stars Eazy-E, Tupac and Biggie Smalls - the headliners skipped an encore.

Dre's chemistry with all the acts was good. The bond he has with Eminem brought to mind the pairing of Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in the "Lethal Weapon" movies.

But a cloud of smoke was blown over all the good things. When the show ended with a commercial for the Source magazine awards on the big video screen, it was hard to see if there was a point to the show at all.

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* Staff writer Mekeisha Madden covers entertainment. Reach her at 253-274-7380 or mekeisha.madden@mail.tribnet.com.

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