ok, before I go any further I feel it is only fair to inform you all I did the following only after a friend pulled the “It’s my birthday” card on me…

Ice Cube, at the Whiskey, with the candlestick.

I mean, with guests.

What better way to wrap up a week of excess and insanity in this city that is called the Stampede than with a old fashioned gangster rap show on a Sunday night?

It didn’t get a mention in the paper the next day (shocking!), but Ice Cube actually played two shows on the final weekend of the “greatest outdoor show on earth”. If the crowd at the Sunday night show was any indication, he played to a packed house both nights.

Opening acts were… some guy (Black Knight?) and then some group of guys, one of which used to be in the Rascalz (Red-1 – thanks be to google / wikipedia). They were ok, and Red-1 definitely got the crowd going when he played the 2 songs I know from the Rascalz (Northern Touch and Top of the World), but everyone was clearly there to see Ice Cube in action. I don’t think either of the openers had the same sound setup as Ice Cube, because they were pretty hard to understand.. or maybe that is what 20 years of performing and making music gets you (the ability to rap / sing / talk without blowing out the microphone).

When he finally took to the stage at 1130 or so, the guy in front of me that I took to calling K-fed (seriously, it was like he took a picture of him and said “yeah, this is the look for me”) nearly pooped himself in the excitement. If I was standing right beside the guy I likely would have lost it because he didn’t stop bouncing around and bumping the people around him for the entire show, but there was a bit of a buffer so I was ok.

I don’t claim to be an expert on this type of music, or even fully versed in Ice Cube’s musical library, but I have to say that the man can put on a pretty entertaining show. Once you got past the incessant spewing of west coast / west side and mother… huggers he definitely knew how to work the crowd, he played a lot of songs I actually recognized / knew (though clearly not as well as K-fed), and he seriously looked like he was having a blast.

In fact, the only complaint I had on Ice Cube’s performance is was that it was too short. He only played for an hour and a bit, so I was left wondering “if he has 20 years of music to draw from, why is the show over already?”

I’m not quite sure I got my money’s worth on this one, but I guess it is now one thing I can cross off that lifetime “to-do” list.