Our collective love almost left us hanging on this Valentine’s Day 2014. Fans infected with adoration for Snoop Dogg (AKA Snoop Lion) arrived at the Varsity Theatre on Friday night to what I believed was a relative unknown. Snoop had added both his Lion and Dogg tag to the bill and that left many of his fans wondering what assortment of music he would be playing. A mix of the old and the new or had Snoop made a full transition into the Irie Lion he seemed to be in Reincarnated. Adding to the suspense, anyone who happened upon ESPN that night would have seen Mr. Dogg (Dr. was taken) playing in the Celebrity All-Star game in the New Orleans Arena until about 30 minutes before his scheduled start time at the varsity. Having seen this I planned accordingly, but upon arriving at the Varsity, it was obvious a majority of the crowd had not.
The atmosphere was palpable and you could have cut it with a knife, though a couple of industrial sized fans would have worked even better. A few DJs spun for the remainder of the time as much of the crowd indulged in the ‘gin and juice’ but finally the word was in the Snoop was in the building foshizzle. It was only moments before Valentine’s Day turned into just the 15^th and the atmosphere began to thicken. Through the haze emerged a tall, dreaded, sweat-suit wearing, OG who went right into a classic. I won’t lie, going into this show I wanted to absolutely remember his opening song for this article but I got caught up in the moment. My bliss completely blocked all memory receptors and I can’t remember the exact song but it was epic in every way. He played every classic. Every hit from his debut and some say best, album Doggystyle was covered including the aforementioned Gin and Juice. He did his verses from “P.I.M.P.”, “Drop It Like Its Hot”, Coolio’s “I’m in Love With Mary Jane” and a tribute song to both Tupac and Biggie, something that I found surprising coming from the Long Beach, California native. It seemed like he played 50 songs in an hour and a half set and it is very possible that he did. I left that night thinking my Snooptastic weekend was over with his last song early Saturday morning, but I was wrong.
On Sunday night, I was fortunate enough to score a ticket to the NBA All-Star game. I went expecting a basketball game and I ended up getting much more. Pharrell Williams was the pregame entertainment and he brought along some friends. Nelly, P. Diddy, Busta Rhymes, and best of all Snoop. They played the hit “Beautiful” together and I was a happy Rosebudd. This account was my weekend with Snoop.