Cross C ‘n‘ C Over Hydration

Cypress Hill, Clawfinger

METAStadt Open Air Wien, Austria 20240713

Starting shot for this year’s series of METAStadt Open Airs. Beat the Fish brings together two pioneers of their league. Hip Hop beats accompany the way from the tram station. Standing in line at the entry you can hear the tracks from DJ Dan like from his crew Texta or Kid Frost. 

Getting inside the area, the picture is the same: queues in all direction, so it might look like a star shot from a drone above. As it is hot, a drink is necessary, but takes about an hour to get. So the question from Zak Tell of Clawfinger, how many people are drinking beer, earns some annoyed laughters. 

Even though the show would be great, as the Swedish Funk Rap Metallers perform with usual energy like at Nova Rock. For „Nothing Going On“, they animate to clap with it. Before „Rosegrove“, they tell from the work at the hospital with old people and that their debut came out 1993, before the term Nu Metal even was invented. 

Bassist André Skaug doesn’t need a microphone to be heard in the front rows. They end with the triumvirate „The Price We Pay“, „The Truth“ and „Do What I Say“. But not without Zak telling that he bought the first Cypress Hill album in 1991 at a comic store in Stockholm old town that sold CDs. 

After the change, DJ Lord presents a roundhouse blow of tunes including Run DMC, Edwin Starr, Panjabi MC and Metallica. As the inflatable skull in the middle is ready, B-Real, Sen Dog and Eric Bobo join, who played together at Royal Albert Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra few days earlier. Also here, the audience happily jumps with them like the „Lowrider“. 

A percussion and scratching battle follows. Every now and then, they splice in other famous beats like from Mobb Deep or Dr. Dre. More highlights are „Hits From the Bong“ and their finals „How I Could Just Kill a Man“, „Insane in the Brain“ and „(Rock) Superstar“ before saying goodbye with „Jump Around“. 

So basically the concerts are great fun. Maybe bit too short for some. But that might be (also) because it takes half of the evening to get something to drink. Hopefully after this starting shot, this will get better for show number two with Jungle.