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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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SNOOP
DOGG
Carling Apollo Hammersmith, London
Friday, February 11th - by
Nick Morgan
Maybe
it’s something to do with the drugs. If
Snoop
Dogg’s on-stage consumption
is anything to go by this is a man with a serious
habit. And then I read later in the weekend’s
press that he’s now only a two ounce a day
man, having cut back from a quarter of a pound
(Serge, what is the cask-strength equivalent?).
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| So
very heavy gangsta shite (as ol’ Snoop might
say) and quite possibly the cause of the fog of
amnesia that leads him to endlessly ask his audience
at the Apollo, “What’s my name?”,
of the occasional anger and frustration he shows,
“I SAID, what’s my motherfucking name?”.
Not that the assembled throng seem to mind such
was their hazy good humour, despite the fact that
(body searches at the door notwithstanding) I was
convinced that we were surrounded by more knives
than you would normally find in the cutlery department
at John Lewis. |
| So
it’s Friday night, two in a row for me in
Hammersmith, and the Snoopster is eventually with
us having had a busy early evening with ‘live’
TV appearances for Top of the Pops (plugging his
new single ‘Let’s get Blown’;
“he’s a wanker” says my daughter)
and the Brit Awards. He’s on stage surrounded
by a fog of smoke (no surprise there then) wearing
an England football shirt, which the crowd love.
It’s a No 5 shirt, which might make the recently
narcotically challenged Rio Ferdinand a bit upset,
but hell, Snoop’s only doing his best to make
everyone happy. |
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| That
includes his audience, his band (real musicians,
real instruments, I’m astonished!), his buxomly
bottomed dancers, the crowd of hangers-on in the
wings (including ‘the dancing machine’,
aka Snoop’s uncle, who spends most of the
night at the edge of the stage leering at the girls
below), record company marketing men, film studio
executives, various lawyers and judges, and even
the franchise holders for the ‘Snoop de Grille’,
soon to be available from BBQ stores somewhere near
you. In fact I observe that the artiste formerly
known as Snoop Doggy Dogg is trying so hard to please
everyone (hell, he’s even got the Bee Gees
on his new album Rhythm and Gangsta) that he’s
lost his place at the head of the pack. According
to his PR machine he used to be “a young nigga
who was on the edge”. Now he’s so far
away from the edge that he’s almost mainstream.
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The
one-time King of gangsta rap should at least be
thankful that he still has his brilliant debut album,
Doggystyle, to depend on. Yes I know, its crude
and misogynistic sentiments are offensive to the
sensibilities of liberal middle class white boys
like me (and of course, our ‘bitches’).
But it was a marvellously executed piece of work
(no doubt largely due to the influence of the good
Dr Dre), mixing musical and lyrical wit with quite
astonishing verbal dexterity. I should add that
it gave a serous boost to my pension fund, as the
song ‘Gin and juice’ (and the accompanying
video) proved a far better stimulus to the sale
of Tanqueray in the USA than either earlier unlooked
for musical tributes (Johnnie Johnson and Keith
Richard’s ‘Tanqueray’) or the
brand’s hugely expensive advertising campaign.
So a big Bow Wow to that! |
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Doggystyle
Snoopy Dogg
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| But
for da Snoop the album was a peak never to be reached
again. And once he exhausted this backbone of his
material on Friday (interspersed with some ho’
hum makeweights and arm-waving chants) he’d
also exhausted both the interest, and patience,
of much of his audience. Had it not been for the
appearance of the hugely popular Pharrell Williams,
which reignited the enthusiasm of the audience just
in time for the finale, then I think the whole evening
would have faded into a barely smouldering dog-end.
But with truly awful sound all night, and a stage
act that was just the end of a leash away from grotesque
self-parody, what could you expect? Every dog has
his day, or so they say. Snoop’s, I suspect
has passed, and now its time he learned some new
trixx.- Nick Morgan (photos by Kate) |
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