"I want to get high," screamed Cypress Hill frontman B. Real at Saturday night's Spring Fling concert, as he indulged in his beloved vice on stage. The crowd, estimated at about three-fourths capacity, responded by filling the pungent-smelling Palestra with mad cheering and hazy smoke. Cypress Hill, the Los Angeles rap outfit noted for their advocacy of marijuana as well as for their gritty hardcore dazed hip-hop stylings, headlined this year's SPEC Spring Fling concert. "They just put on a really great show," Wharton sophomore Sam Kwon said. "They seemed to really play to the audience." Hip-hop jazz fusionists G. Love and Special Sauce began the evening with a poorly-attended opening set. The crowd quickly piled in for old school rap progenitors Run-DMC. The Brooklyn-based B-Boys jammed through a set laden with hits from their old, gold chain-wearing days, like "My Adidas" and "Mary, Mary" before launching into a spirited version of their 1986 genre-blending breakthrough, "Walk This Way." Students appeared pleased with the performance. "Run-DMC was a lot of fun," College senior Rob Berger said. "There's little I like better than kicking it old school." Seattle grunge-sters Mudhoney faced a less supportive crowd, however. The hallways filled and the Palestra-floor crowd sat down as the musicians droned through feedback-laced songs. Facing a hostile crowd of middle-finger waving, jeering concert-goers imploring Mudhoney to complete their set, the rock group murmured "There's no way we're leaving the stage." "They were, I think, the most uninteresting band I've ever seen," said College sophomore Jonathan Klassen. "I almost left." The arena re-filled in time for Cypress' set. Opening with their anthem "Insane in the Brain," Cypress led the crowd through a hit-filled session. The newly shorn B. Real and dredded Sen-Dog bounced around the stage during songs, and riled the audience with bongo solos and a mantra of "I love you, Mary Jane." The Cypress Hill show was well received by the students, although the audience's deportment was the subject of some criticism. "People were being really rough," Wharton sophomore Dawn Boutzale said. "I've seen a lot of shows with rough mosh pits, but the people here were just being jerks." In fact, some of the rowdier thrashers were members of the Cypress Hill entourage, who spilled into the audience to rile the crowd. While students seemed pleased with the two main rap acts, the limited diversity of the show's lineup bore some criticism. "I think that with all of the money they had to spend, SPEC could have done a much better job choosing bands," said Wharton sophomore Amar Lalvani. "They should have gotten bands that different crowds would've liked, instead of just rap."
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