Snoop Dogg smoke screens
The Red Hot Chili Peppers

By: Kristin Fjeldheim

        Tailgating is a pastime that sports fans in South Florida have participated in for years. But it's not just for sports, or just for your parents, anymore. As I walked onto the South Florida fair grounds there were hundreds of college kids home for the summer barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers. They were waiting to see Snoop and The Chili Peppers put on a killer show, and hoping that it would go on into the wee hours of the night, as most Chili Peppers concerts do. "We've been here since two o'clock, just giving out beers and burgers," said Sean, a FSU student.

        As the magic hour quickly approached, everyone corralled into the Sound Advice Amphitheater to watch Snoop and the Snoopadelics get the party started right. At first Snoop was nowhere in sight, but the gin and juice were flowing; a security guard said, "The stage sure smells ready." Then out he came spiting "light 'em up, light 'em up," looking more like a punk rocker than a hip hop artist, as DJ Jam spun some beats right into Murder was the Case that started the night off. Snoop put on a great show playing everyone's favorites from Gin and Juice to his new hit Beautiful. And when "the one and only D-O double G" told the audience to "smoke weed every day," a little cloud floated over Sound Advice and seemed to hover for quite a while.

        But what everyone wants to know is if the Chili Peppers rocked the stage like the legends they are. Well, not really. I was actually a bit disappointed. A few years ago when I saw the Chili Peppers, they played for three hours and did three encores. Perhaps you could say my expectations were too high, but they only played for about an hour and a half (only thirty minutes longer than Snoop Dogg) and did only one encore (that consisted of two songs). Their light show left something to be desired to say the least. I mean, I saw Incubus play a few months ago in the same venue, and their light show blew my mind; I expected a little more from THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS.

        Also, the sound quality was awful. During the second song the microphone went out so you couldn't hear anything lead singer Anthony Kiedis was singing, and from the lawn it sounded like someone was just playing a radio really loud. They didn't play any of the songs I wanted to hear, except for Scar Tissue, and then mostly performed a bunch of songs off their new album. There were no crazy stage antics or outlandish comments, just a hello to John's grandparents who were sitting on stage left. Wait a minute - maybe that has something to do with the tame lameness of this particular Chili Peppers concert. Who knows? I just hope the next time the Chili Peppers come, they rock like they used to, if they still can, or perhaps it's time to hang up the giant lightbulb heads for good. Snoop should have been the main event because he made this concert worthwhile for me, yippee-o yippee-eh.