It’s pretty much a guarantee that Toronto’s Festival of Beer (TFOB) will put on one of the best Hip-Hop concerts in the city every year they’re active. Now celebrating their 28th year, TFOB is back for another weekend of festivities, and they’re staying consistent with their trend of dedicating the Friday night of the festival to Hip-Hop. In past years we’ve seen the Hip-Hop night of the festival headlined by Method Man & Redman, Ludacris, Public Enemy Radio, Nas, and most recently Ice Cube. The 2024 edition would maintain that standard of excellence, as it would be headlined by yet another iconic group who are considered pioneers when it comes to West-Coast, California-based Hip-Hop, Cypress Hill.

While Cypress Hill have toured through Toronto plenty of times over the years, this would be the first time in a long time that Toronto fans would get to see them perform as headliners, as they’ve only come here in recent years opening for major rock bands like Slipknot and Billy Talent, and would finally be headlining a rap show again. With Hip-Hop as a culture recently celebrating 50 years of history, it’s only right that Cypress Hill get their own spotlight, as they have a legacy spanning 10 albums released over 30+ years. Over that time, they’ve been known as one of the first Latin groups to break ground in Hip-Hop, blending hard rock and Latin influences into their style of rap, and of course advocating for the legalization of marijuana both through their music and as activists. A lot of fans have been waiting to celebrate this legacy with them as part of Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary, and would now finally get their chance.

As always, we started off our Beer Fest experience by exploring the festival grounds and sampling some beer. Bandshell Park was filled with hundreds of beer tents with breweries from around the world pouring samples, along with games and prizes, and the expanded “beyond beer” section with distilleries serving up cocktails. While it feels like the beer selection has gotten smaller in the post-COVID years, TFOB did make some improvements to make things more efficient for festival-goers, as we barely had to wait in line for anything. After a few hours of sampling a lot of beer, we eventually made our way to the Bandshell Stage as the show was about to get started with the openers: Souls of Mischief.

Another California-based group, Souls of Mischief have been touring with Cypress Hill this year after completing their own 30th Anniversary Tour in 2023, which we saw them kick off right here in Toronto with two sold-out shows at Adelaide Hall. They were happy to be back and rocking a much larger outdoor stage, as DJ Lazyboy played them in with the Hieroglyphics track “At The Helm” and the crowd gathered around to party with them. The four-man group consisting of emcees Tajai, Phesto, Opio and A-Plus would get the crowd moving with several songs off of their classic 93 ‘Til Infinity album, including “That’s When Ya Lost,” “Disses Howedo,” “Live And Let Live,” “Never No More,” “Limitations,” and “Batting Practice.” Sounding sharp as ever, they put on a clinic when it comes to microphone presence, nailing all their vocals raw and having the group members jump in to emphasize their dope rhyme patterns.

Souls of Mischief’s setlist wouldn’t strictly stick to 1993 though, as they’d throw in a few rarities like the day-one demo “Step To My Girl,” a new 2024 joint called “yes LOvELy,” and rocked 2009’s “Tour Stories” right before giving an RIP shoutout to A Tribe Called Quest’s Phife Dawg and De La Soul’s Trugoy, who they went on their very first tour with back in the ’90s. Despite having obvious hits that always move the crowd, you could tell these guys just like to rap, as they got into “The Last Act” off of their 2014 album There Is Only Now, and spit their rapid-fire verses with the precision and execution only skilled emcees could pull off. The obvious hits would come next to close out their set, as they got the crowd singing along to Queen Latifah’s “U.N.I.T.Y.” before performing the Hieroglyphics classic “You Never Knew,” and gave DJ Lazyboy a segment to perform some cuts on the turntables before rocking “93 ‘Til Infinity.” The fans were all waving their arms to the beat and chanting along to the hook as Souls of Mischief passionately rocked their classic throwback; “this is how we chill from ’93 ’til!!”

As the sun set, there would be a bit of a break for Cypress Hill’s gear to get set up, including a giant inflatable Dr. Greenthumb mascot getting blown up, and pretty soon it was time for the headliners to take the stage. DJ Lord would cut up some records on the turntables as Eric Bobo got set up behind the drums, and they’d bring out B-Real and Sen Dog to set things off with “Cock The Hammer.” With the album title Black Sunday written on the banner hanging from the DJ booth, you knew they’d be performing a bunch of songs off of that classic album, as they rocked “A To The K” and “When The Shit Goes Down” early in the setlist. They of course wouldn’t strictly stick to 1993 through, as they rocked the throwback “Hand On The Pump,” initially rapping the hook over Method Man & Redman’s “Da Rockwilder” beat before performing the 1991 original.

Despite some sound issues with B-Real’s microphone being low throughout the set, the fans were hyped as Cypress Hill performed the classics. They’d also throw some curveballs, pulling out rarities like 2001’s “Lowrider,” and B-Real would join Eric Bobo on the drums as they emulated Travis Barker’s production on “Beat Goes On.” B-Real would take a moment to salute the fans, whether this was their first time seeing Cypress Hill perform live or otherwise, and him and Sen Dog would make way for DJ Lord and Eric Bobo to have their own segment. With DJ Lord cutting it up on the turntables and Eric Bobo rocking the drums, the two had dope chemistry as they made a hype beat for the crowd to get down to.

B-Real would return to the stage on his own, joint in hand, and he’d getting into some classic weed anthems for the smokers. This would include “Roll It Up, Light It Up, Smoke It Up” off of the Friday Soundtrack, and the intro track to Black Sunday, “I Wanna Get High,” with the crowd singing along in unison to that Rita Marley interpolation on the hook. Sen Dog would join B-Real on stage as they continued the weed anthems with the up-tempo “Cisco Kid,” Eric Bobo & DJ Lord remixing the beat for Sen Dog’s verse. They’d of course get the crowd bouncing to “Dr. Greenthumb,” and kept the energy high even during a mellow track like “Hits From The Bong” by flipping the beat to Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode” midway through.

For the next segment, Cypress Hill would give a nod to their 1995 album, III: Temples Of Boom, performing a few songs off of that album. The crowd was with them as B-Real kicked it off with the lyrics “some people tell me that I need help,” and the crowd finished the line: “some people can fuck off and go to hell!!” This of course led into a performance of “Illusions,” and they’d follow up with more fan favourites off the album like “Boom Biddy Bye Bye” and “Throw Your Set In The Air,” the crowd waving their arms as DJ Lord flipped the beat to Snoop Dogg’s “Murder Was The Case” for B-Real’s last verse.

B-Real would take a moment to reflect on Cypress Hill being active for 32 years, speaking on longevity and never stopping the music before appropriately getting into the 1993 classic “I Ain’t Going Out Like That.” The crowd turned all the way up and chanted along to the hook as B-Real and Sen Dog nailed their verses, and Eric Bobo got a dope drum solo in the middle of the track. B-Real and Sen Dog would next do an energy check with the crowd, pitting the left side against the right side with a call-and-response segment before getting into the most hype songs of the setlist. They’d get the crowd to jump to Black Sheep’s “The Choice Is Yours,” and DJ Lord would transition that beat into the day-one Cypress Hill throwback, “How I Could Just Kill A Man.”

The crowd was as hype as they’d been all night as Cypress Hill used their live instrumentation to give “How I Could Just Kill A Man” a hard rock styled build up before the last hook. The energy stayed high as they continued with some of their most recognizable classics, getting everyone to go crazy to “Insane In The Brain,” and doing an epic performance of “(Rock) Superstar” that once again saw DJ Lord flip the beat for the last verse, doing a genius mash-up with Nas’ “Hate Me Now.” While this felt like a certified mosh pit-starter, the crowd seemed a bit mellow for this last track with no mosh pits breaking out; maybe no one wanted to lose their beer mugs or spill drinks they spent tokens on.

While “(Rock) Superstar” is usually where Cypress Hill ends their shows, they decided to do one more for the crowd. They recreated a scene from B-Real’s Dr. Greenthumb Show podcast where they brought Souls of Mischief back out on stage to join them and got everyone to crouch down. In one last moment of pure Hip-Hop fun, they’d drop the beat to House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” and got everyone jumping as B-Real and Sen Dog covered the vocals. With a lot of Cypress Hill fans being older, some of us felt our knees pop as we jumped up, but the crowd as a whole put in solid energy.

Overall, this was another fun Beer Fest that can stand with the great concerts they’ve put on in past years. It was my personal first time seeing Cypress Hill perform a full setlist, and they performed all the classics I wanted to see, leaning heavily on Black Sunday while touching on most of their discography up to 2001, and throwing in a few rare collaborations and soundtrack features. While it would have been cool to see some tracks off their later albums like 2010’s Rise Up and their most recent from 2022, Back In Black, most of the crowd was satisfied with them sticking to the classics. The way Cypress Hill performs live adds a ton of energy to the songs too, as Eric Bobo’s drumming allows them to remix the beats, and DJ Lord stands out with his cuts and sampling, doing a lot more than simply playing the beats.

Between Cypress Hill and Souls of Mischief, the 2024 edition of Toronto’s Festival of Beer brought another incredible summer concert to the city celebrating classic Hip-Hop. The festival continues all weekend with Rock and Country performances on Saturday and Sunday, tickets can be found at beerfestival.ca!

Check out this playlist of concert videos from every Festival of Beer I’ve been to!

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