A Welcome Return: The 2009 SmokeOut Festival Lights Up The San Bernardino Sky
Amidst all of the festivals that come through town, few have managed to meld as many genres or minds quite like Cypress Hill’s annual SmokeOut Festival has. Born back in 1998, the band brought together many of their like-minded peers from a plethora of genres to take part in helping raise awareness for marijuana culture and education while also having some fun in the process. However, after a successful run, the last SmokeOut took place over six years ago, back in 2003. Now with medical marijuana laws reforming and the culture as big as ever, the time seemed right for a revival, so myself, along with trusted partners-in-crime and photographers, Smash LeFunk and the notorious nomad known as Upper Hands, we set out to San Bernardino for two mind-opening days of musical (and marijuana) madness.
We entered the sprawling San Manuel Amphitheater and saw that two giant stages at been set up at each end of the massive grounds. Among all of the artists we were excited to see, we were most stoaked to see were headliners Cypress Hill, who were taking a page out of Pink Floyd’s playbook by performing their legendary album, Black Sunday, in its entirety, the reformation of Cee-Lo’s original outfit,the groovy Goodie Mob, Method Man & Redman, Hieroglyphics and of course the notorious hosts, Cheech & Chong. While I wasn’t particularly enamored with this year’s rock offerings of The Deftones and Slipknot, I was curious to see a reformed Sublime, who were trying out their new lead singer for the first time.
“SmokeOut is definitely diverse, more so than a lot of festivals out there,” B-Real, from Cypress Hill told me. “You got hip-hop, old school and new school, along with some pop flavor and like some metal flavor. It’s rare when you have that kind of mix, especially here in California."
We were influenced by a lot of the things that the European festivals were doing, so we tried to take a couple of things from that, bring it home and do it our own way and that’s what SmokeOut is.
When I asked him about performing Black Sunday for the first time in its entirety, the lyrical wizard was particularly high on the concept (or perhaps he was just high from his self-professed sin of ‘weed gluttony’).
“Well you know, Black Sunday is a pretty dark album, so it’s almost like a roller coaster ride,” B-Real explained. “There’s really aggressive, in your face songs and then there’s the chilled, mellow, get high songs, the mid-tempo darker things, so it’s gonna take a couple of twists in there, but I think people are gonna enjoy it. The sound here is great and I think our visual aides are gonna be great.” He then smiled and added, “We’re gonna hit it and it’s gonna be like you remember.”
B-Real delivered on his promise and later closed down the first night of his festival in fine style with long-time cohort, Sen Dog. The duo captivated the crowd from the on-set, with classics like, “I Wanna Get High,” in which a virtual mushroom cloud of smoke engulfed the Amphitheater, the ubiquitous, “Insane in the Brain” and “Hits From the Bong,” before closing things out with the true hints of what was to come from the group, “Hand On The Glock” and “Break ‘Em Off Some.”
One of the other highlights from the first day, for both myself and Smash was getting to see the legendary Bay-area crew, Hieroglyphics, perform complete with Del Tha Funkee Homosapien in the fold as well. The collective combed through their vast back catalog and delivered stand-out versions of the Del-lead, "Burnt," the killer Casual vocals on "Fear No Evil," and even dipped so far back as to deliver some Souls of Mischief material (a side-project within the group), much to the delight of Smash LeFunk and certainly the crowd, who puffed in approval.
After their set, we caught up with Del, who gave us the skinny on the status of the group as well as his many side projects.
We’re all working on our solo projects. A Plus and I are actually working on a project together called, Hypnotize, so we’re trying to keep that moving.
We also discovered that Del is giving away his brand new solo album for free via his website. As much as I was astounded by Radiohead doing this a couple of years back, it amazes me even more to see an American hip-hop star try his hand at this approach.
“I did it really because I feel people man,” Del said. “I feel people downloading the music, I feel why they doing it because it’s available for one, you ain’t got no money, everybody’s doing worse now, money’s hard to come by, and people ain’t stupid anymore. Iit’s like ‘ok, I’m not havin’ that, I’ve seen you with the chains, I’ve seen you with ‘dem broads, I’ve seen all that shit you’ve been with in your videos and I’m not buyin it.’ So I’m just letting people know I’m on the level. Check it out, if you think I’m full of shit, you listen to it. It’s free. People didn’t even believe it. They’re like, ‘What are you getting out of this man?’ I’m like, ‘Nothing - it’s just you ain’t gonna buy it. You gonna download it.’ He then cracked a smile and added, “No, I’m just playin’ man. Some people gonna be cheap or whatever but I find that most people are still gonna support it.”
Perhaps his most beloved character of all though, remains to me, Deltron 3030, the futuristic hip-hop virtuoso, backed by Dan “The Automator” and Kid Koala production. Their sci-fi opus dropped in 2000 and fans have long been eager to hear further tales from this crazy character.
“It really has a lot of feel to what’s going now,” Del revealed. “Basically, everything is destroyed. The corporation or whatever they done fucked up, everything is gone. Ain’t no laser pistols, very little technology is left because everybody fucked all that up. It’s like Mad Max or some shit.”
With the both Dan and Kid Koala’s contributions complete, all that remains is for Del to dive back into his Deltron persona.
“Basically, I gotta be free to imagine stuff,” he explained. “On a day-to-day basis I can’t do that. I just gotta be in that place where it’s cool, so I can write more for it for a long time. Stuff’s too real though, so I had to deal with all that.”
He does promise that it will be well worth the wait and that a lot of changes could be in store from the first chapter.
“Well the production damn near sounds like Anime with a beat behind it,” he laughed. “Like it’s on some other shit, real cinematic.”
No doubt Del’s time spent at SmokeOut provided ample relaxation and inspiration for plenty of new material.
Closing out the day was the highlight of the festival for me and it came in the form of Goodie Mob’s reunion on stage. I’d always appreciated the craziness of this bunch, who were firm fixtures for me in high school alongside their fellow Dungeon Family, Outkast, and I was thrilled when Sleepy Brown joined the Goodie gang on stage for a tune.
“It feels great,” Sleepy said. “It’s being back with my brothas, like we never left each other. There comes a time where you gotta do different things solo, but this is a time to come back together.”
He also promised that the gang might be getting back together soon for a full Dungeon Family reunion.
“Man, that’s what we’ve been trying to do,” he laughed.
We’re working on it. We had a meeting, talked about it and stuff, so another album is in the works!
After electrifying the crowd with Goodie classics and an incredible new interpretation of Cee-Lo’s smash, “Crazy,” the boys were properly pumped when we caught up with them.
“We still on and poppin’ man, we tuned in,” Cee-Lo said backstage. “We were kind of stuck in some traffic on the way down here, so we were a little rushed, but we worked our way into it.”
The chemistry was certainly there and for those in attendance who were having their first Goodie experience (that would be me) it was truly something special.
Smash and I were famished from all the festivities and as we began our voyage home, I searched my trusty Magellan for where the closest food options were and as if it were a sign of things to come, the closest option was the perfect choice, the Up In Smoke BBQ. Upon arriving we were devastated to discover that they had just closed, but it was meant to be, as the restaurant showed some true Southern hospitality and stayed open just for us. In a fitting way to cap our latest adventure, we feasted on some of the finest and most authentic Southern BBQ we’ve ever tried.
Arriving back for the day two of the festival, this time with the elusive Upper Hands as my photographer and cohort, we arrived at the main stage just in time to see Cheech & Chong ushering in the second day of the festival. Tommy proudly proclaimed, “Four years ago I was in jail and I kind of knew this day was coming.” He then added, “We’re about to go on tour, which starts in January and it’s called the Get It Legal tour.”
The place was nearly three times as packed on its second day, with concert-goers of all ages sitting on blankets over the hill, grooving out everywhere and checking out the expo tent, where vendors dispensed information and peddled their products.
It’s here where I met up with Bret Bogue, a Horticultural expert, who’s now sharing his knowledge at the recently started, GGECO University, where you can learn all about cannabis culture through their weekend courses.
“Honestly, it was an idea I came up with four or five months ago,” Bret shared. “I had been watching a lot of the politics going on and it got to the point where I started seeing a need to help out specifically. Being that I’ve won numerous Cannabis Cups around the world, I thought to myself, ‘What better time than now?’ With the new laws, to be able to come out and offer a course that is going to give you the five basic components, and that’s all this course is, a base, for learning about law, medicinal purposes, cooking (oil, butter, etc) and finally, the horticulture part, which is my expertise.”
It’s people like Bret and the hundreds of marijuana masters in their respective fields who are helping to shape the next generation of cannabis education. With so many youths at the festival, I wondered if the message was getting through or if it was just going ‘up in smoke.’
“I believe so, yes,” said Matthew, who was working with MediCan, which has the largest chain of doctor’s offices in California that provide medical marijuana recommendations. “I think there’s some animosity by the San Bernardino Sheriff's office here, but other than that I think everyone else is having a great time.”
With over 21 clinics across California and approximately 170,000 patients, MediCan is doing its part to help out those in need of their medicine and as evidenced on this weekend, there are plenty of people in need.
“All of our doctors are licensed by the California Medical Board and are all in good standing,” Matthew told me. “We provide 24 hour a day, seven days a week verification through the phone or internet. We have a call service that is always open.” But he stressed that MediCan saw the festival as a way to help educate those who might be in serious need of medicinal marijuana as opposed to glorifying it to the more gluttonous weed heathens. “You’re never gonna see MediCan set up a booth and give recommendations at a festival like this. We need to support the patient’s right to keep their medical records private.”
I even ran into a lovely, local pharmacy owner, Sara Newton (a former High Times magazine model), who is an activist and shining star in the cannabis crusade.
“I’ve kind of taken it above and beyond and I’m an activist, so for me, it was a way to really get myself out there and work for High Times and NORML and use that. I speak at different events all over the world.”
As the night wore on, B-Real reflected on what had turned out to be one of the better festivals we’ve been a part of.
“It’s quite a party out here,” he said as he soaked in his surroundings. “It’s good to be bringing this festival back to California. It’s a homegrown festival, no pun intended. We’re trying to make this a traditional kind of thing for Californians so that people will want to come here and be a part of it.”
After all this, we’re already looking forward to this April’s 4:20 Harvest, where Cypress Hill will once again team up with Guerilla Union on what should be another smokin’ affair.
Photos By: Smash LeFunk & Upperhands
