After a rising career of 22 years one of the best and famous American rap bands ever came to the “beautiful island of Ibiza”, and as they said themselves, being very happy for having been invited to showcase at the “world’s best club” Space for the “Beat & Raw” opening party, taking place on the first Friday in July 2012.
The atmosphere in the main room was boiling and a frenetic audience of all ages went nuts when Cypress Hill performed some of their classic songs, spiced up with some instrumental and percussive elements, bits of new songs, improvisations and electronic beats. Their 6th song was “Insane in the Membrane” from their 1993 album “Black Sunday”, and you can not imagine the energy in the Discoteca if you were not there, also for the massive track “Rock Superstar” (from their 2000 hit album “Skull & Bones”) the music could not be loud enough with all the fans singing and rapping along, carried away by the powerful performance of Cypress Hill, consisting of lead singers B-Real and Sen Dog, and their band, DJ Muggs and percussionist Bobo.
The light show was basic and you could get the impression that you are time-travelled back into a 90’ies youth club, forgetting that you are actually in a 21st century super disco in Ibiza. The set up of the stage was classic so the focus was exclusively on the band, with nothing of that big festival staging what Cypress Hill normally are used to in the States but everything rather back to basic, helping to give the concert at Space a very cosy and intense old-school feeling. In the spotlight of the Ibiza crowd were entirely the rappers and you were left with the impression that after 22 years of a glowing career the Cuban-American/Latino combo Cypress Hill still have not lost anything of their spark.
To bond with their local fans, songs like “I want to get high” were sung in Spanish and B-Real lit up something on stage that looked like a joint – but you couldn’t say really what is was (well, from the distance it looked like a paper rolled subject with smoke coming out but actually it could have been everything else than a joint, and if the intention was to shock the audience, it didn’t have the intended effect as from the local guests nobody seemed surprised about it).
In the moment of “Rock Superstar” you felt that this is a Cypress Hill concert, with those two massive lead men in their leather vests and baggy pants jumping and waving their microphones, mixing classic rap elements from their well-known songs with new stuff, giving their fans an understanding of where they are now musically.
“Beat & Raw” is the new Friday nights concept at Space this summer 2012, making the great attempt to bring over some hip hop, rap, live and old-school bands to the island, and with Cypress Hill performing at the opening making definitely a big step to shake up all fans in Ibiza to come and check out that new night. Cypress Hill said that they want to come back now every year, so let’s welcome them in 2013 and see what they gonna have for us then!
