Cypress Hill sparked a unique collaboration with the The San Diego Symphony at The Rady Shell
On Tuesday evening July 25th The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park played host to a unique live concert collaboration between the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and Hip-Hop Legends Cypress Hill. This exciting and seemingly unlikely pairing was in celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Cypress Hill’s 2nd album Black Sunday, released in 1993 and featuring fan favorites like “Insane in The Brain,” “Hits From The Bong,” “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That” and many more.
The live concert started with a well-known meme video clip being played back from The Simpsons TV show. In a true “Simpsons predicted it” moment, this cartoon inspiration of Cypress Hill mistakenly ordering a symphony orchestra actually turned out to be a fantastic idea in real life!
Playing selections from both the Black Sunday album and an encore of greatest hits with an orchestral accompaniment, Cypress Hill has certainly never sounded quite like this. The band’s infamous duo of MCs BReal and Sen Dog both came out dressed to impress in tuxes, with a small but powerful backing band including DJ Lord and percussionist/drummer Eric “Bobo” Correa. BReal and Sen Dog were in top form nailing line after line and trading quick bars back and forth throughout the evening. Their backing band was fantastic as always with DJ Lord and Eric Bob both killing solos and nailing beats.
The San Diego Symphony did an absolutely admirable job as well, interpreting the musical samples and melodies from the band’s diverse library of songs. Listening to the Symphony’s percussionists play gun shots with slap sticks, hearing violinists nail classic hip hop samples, and seeing the woodwind and brass sections bobbing their heads along to the beat of the songs was so much fun. Kudos to both the San Diego Symphony for being brave enough to go along with this idea, and for Cypress Hill for always innovating with their live shows.
The Shell certainly was smoky on this July evening, but the hazy crowd in attendance seemed to love this extremely rare live concert experience. Let’s hope for more San Diego Symphony mash ups with classic bands in the future.
