Don't Get On Snoop Dogg's Stage.

This is a bit of a long one.

So I decided to work the concert season at White River Amphitheater on the weekends for fun & for a couple extra bucks. The first show of the season is Snoop Dogg.

Now this started out a little weird, I was late getting to the load in. Then while we are putting together a lighting truss I smell something.......something familiar.......something from my past.......I'm suddenly hungry & I don't know why. I look around & yup the roadies are smoking a joint. Now while I know roadies tend to smoke drink etc. they usually don't during work. Towards the end of setting up the stage a couple of the roadies mention that we're the best crew they've had yet. Seems we are about an hour & half ahead of schedule.

After set-up most of us are cut until tear down & load out. Since it's way early in the afternoon I go home, get something to eat & basically chill till load out.

I arrive early for load out & notice the parking lot is barely half full. Methinks Snoop is not big in the Seattle area. I make my way around to the backstage entrance, check through with the guard, then walk up to the backstage area & check in with ERM (the company I'm working for). I look out through a door to the audience & it's a small crowd, most are in the pit area.

I find out that Snoop is not there yet & that nobody is on stage right now. The Game had already played & nobody's been on stage for about 10-15 minutes. Roughly 30 minutes later Snoop's tour bus shows up. How do I know it's Snoop's? It the only bus with spinners on the wheels. Another 45 minutes pass. I find out that White River has a curfew in place that all shows need to be over at 11:00pm, every minute over is a $1000 fine to the performer. Evidently Snoop has been doing this at his last few shows, showing up late playing his full set & just paying the fines.

Snoop takes the stage finally at 10:30pm. We are told we are on "Snoop Time" & that he is playing his full set & possibly longer. Also we are not allowed to "walk through" and go watch the show in the audience area.

About an hour into the show is when all hell breaks loose.

(The following is culled from the stories of five people I talked to who were able to see the show. One of our guys that snuck up to see the show, 2 of our guys that were working spotlights, & from 2 of the roadies.)

Some guy decides he's going to get on stage & hang with Snoop. Now this guy is not small, were talking defensive lineman big. He somehow managed to get past not only house security, but Snoop's own security. As soon as the guy made it to the stage he was grabbed up by 3 guys. Snoop comes over & busts his glass of Hennessey (he had a few bottles on stage) over the guy's head. Then 20 guys (Snoop's security/crew) came out of nowhere & gave this guy the beating of his life. House security & medics eventually brought the guy back stage. Dude was bloody all over & for some reason his pants were ripped to shreds. He was able to walk by himself. They got an ambulance back there & took him away.

We were told that we are not to go anywhere, stay right in out little waiting area. That things were very tense in the main backstage area (understatement) & that the cops had to go over the "crime scene" & that they had to get a haz-mat team in to clean up all the blood. If we need to go to the bath room we were use the buddy system & let one of our supervisors know we were going. When we were finally able to go in & start tear down were all given rubber latex gloves for our protection.

When I finally got on the stage......Wow. They had cleaned up the blood, but it does leave that tell-tale stain. It was about a 6-8 foot around stain & when we moved some equipment we found more. Unfortunately it was also right were some of the cables I was gathering up went right through, so they had to get the haz-mat clean-up team back in there.

The lighting roadie I was working with stated he's never work a rap tour ever again. This poor guy was right there for the whole thing. He had gotten splattered with the blood, had to be questioned by the cops & then scrubbed down by the haz-mat/medic team.

At the end of the night when we signed out there was no free swag, but someone did find a box of CD singles that they were giving out at the show. It was of a new rapper Snoop discovered called "Oowee." One of the crew told me earlier that the crew had nicknamed him Mini-Me because he would dress like Snoop & do all of Snoop's move right along with Snoop, but was shorter than Snoop.

So that was my fun last night.