Cypress Hill SmokeOut Fest Provides A Good Time To All Audiences
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Photo from Aislinn Glennon
Despite the wide range of fans from Rusko shufflers to Korn’s devoted rock fans, the entire festival ran smoothly and provided clear details to patients about medical rules and to fans about the updated lineup.
Originally scheduled to occur in November, the SmokeOut festival was rescheduled due to venue conflicts and the event wanting to live up to previous years’ standards of bringing music appealing to both the medical cannabis consumer and the non-pot smoker.
With headliners Cypress Hill, Sublime with Rome, Korn, Rusko, Thievery Corporation, and Wiz Khalifa, SmokeOut fest pleased long-time standing fans and created an atmosphere of nostalgia for the past decade of hits from pro-cannabis bands, some of which hail from SoCal itself.
Before arriving at the event, entry began at the long line of raised trucks sitting in the desert sun waiting to park nearby the NOS venue. Parking provided confusion with many local parking lots charging $20 and the main general admission parking, seemingly further from the venue, being included in the cost of the festival ticket price.
Entry into the event itself ran smoothly and fairly quickly through the media entrance with the general admission entrance being significantly less chaotic and timely than most major music venue admission lines.
Cypress Hill’s B-Real has hosted the SmokeOut festival for over the past decade and promoted safe and legal medical marijuana consumption in a laid-back atmosphere bringing together hip-hop, rap, rock, and electronica fans together for the day of 420-friendly music, paraphernalia and munchies.
The festival included the two main stages, the SmokeOut stage featuring Cypress Hill, Sublime with Rome and Korn, and the Massive Stoned Garden stage featuring Rusko, Thievery Corporation, Wolfgang Gartner, and MSTRKRFT with an array of vendors, food trucks, and even a grassy field filled with prescription-bearing festival goers celebrating their right to enjoy the festival without any trouble from the law enforcement.
The designated area sponsored by WeedMaps, a popular website listing ratings and reviews of local cannabis dispensaries, allowed those with proper documentation to smoke their cannabis in the open air. Many of the vendors provided an array of merchandise such as SmokeOut shirts, marijuana leaf necklaces, and unique handmade glass pieces.
After some price checking, the vendors were great salesmen, bargaining prices for the glass pipes and one-of-a-kind art pieces from glassblowers. As the area of San Bernardino is far away from the glass overload at Venice Beach, SmokeOut vendors provided artistic paraphernalia for a reasonable price at a memorable event in which you could then partake in using your recent purchase to blaze at the WeedMaps Patient Area.
Thievery Corporation stole the show at the Massive Stoned Garden stage for those looking for a more diverse palette than the electronic music of Wolfgang Gartner previously on stage, who amped up the crowd to some fast-paced dancing.
Consisting primarily of DJ duos Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, Thievery Corporation brought on various artists to spice up the mood with acid jazz, reggae, and Indian classical guitar. The bassist Ashish Vyas bobbed around barefoot on stage and eventually stopped in the middle to hold his bass upright and jam to the beat of Jeff Franca on drums.
A couple female artists brought the bewitching vibe of Stevie Nicks while singing soaring lyrics blending into the acid jazz and overall trance-like light show. A reggae duo in matching safari attire also stole the stage and amped up the crowd out of their trance states to clapping their hands to the beat of the songs.
Lastly but not to be forgotten, hip hop artist Lif busted some lyrics on stage and carried enough swagger as Jay-Z while not overpowering the rest of Thievery Corporation.
Security and rules about patient smoking and items allowed in the venue was thoroughly explained on the festival’s website. Much of the security guards in the crowd seemed to not see when fans lit up marijuana while watching the various bands and DJs on stage. Only those at the festival who were fainting from the desert and crowd heat or overdosed were escorted out of the area for proper medical attention.
Overall, the laid-back crowd followed rules and regulations and created a fun and energetic atmosphere ranging from the fans singing along to old Cypress Hill and Sublime tunes to the youngsters shuffling in rave attire to Rusko.
Reach Aislinn Glennon here.
