Milwaukee’s Night With Snoop Dogg Was The Shiznit

Snoop Dogg had already had a big Milwaukee Saturday by the time he sauntered onto stage to open Potawatomi Casino Hotel’s new outdoor concert venue. 

Before the show, the 52-year-old Doggfather of West Coast rap seeded a generation of Brewers memes by hanging out with players and coaches in the AmFam Field clubhouse, throwing out the first pitch to the delight of the crowd and trying his hand at TV play-by-plizzle, delivering an unforgettable call of an infield hit and subsequent stolen base by Christian Yelich. He also shouted out his wife and manager, Shante Broadus, on Instagram for their 27th wedding anniversary.  

I know how I feel by 9:20 p.m. on those long, full Milwaukee summer days, and I’m six years Snoop’s junior. And I didn’t play a show the previous night in London, Ontario, and I’m not playing a show the next day in Winnipeg. 

But I am also not Snoop Dogg, and that is exactly why I – and thousands of others – had come to Poto. We had come to hang out with one of the coolest people on the planet, an icon of chill. This is not a job that requires an abundance of energy.  

And as the lights came on and Snoop began his two-hour show with “The Next Episode,” I was reminded… oh yeah, this is actually a concert. Wearing white sparkly sunglasses, track pants and a black jacket with the Death Row Records logo on the back and his face on the front, he meandered through the opening Dr. Dre duet with his trademark effortless flow. 

And this is Snoop’s genius – he’s the calm, preternaturally cool center of whatever frenetic activity is surrounding him. Musically, he’s always been the balancing factor to fat beats, copious samples and flashier MCs. On Poto’s stage, he was the magnetic, dreadlocked negative space among bikini-clad booty dancers and flashing lights and animated SoCal imagery and a dancer in a monkey-smoking-a-blunt costume head absolutely ripping it up next to him. He’s laid back. I mean, the dude wielded a gold-plated make-it-rain gun that shot dozens of dollar bills into the air. 

The set bounced around his hits, nearly all of which feature other artists or on his name comes after “f.” and nearly all truncated before their full run. There were a few surprises, like covers of fellow cannabis enthusiasts House of Pain’s “Jump Around” – was that a Wisconsin special? –  as well as Biggie’s “Hypnotize” and 2Pac’s “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.” Yes, the vibe was old-school.

As someone who consumes more of Snoop’s persona than his actual music these days, I was struck by how he’s built a mammoth international mainstream brand on the back of some extremely adult themes. Misogyny – “You can say your boss felt like there was a little too much pole dancing,” MilMag editor and publisher Carole Nicksin leaned over and told me – overt violence, sex and drugs are all fundamental to the Snoop oeuvre. 

Nobody really cares about the weed anymore, least of all at a Snoop concert, but there was a short film interlude depicting a traffic stop that ends with two cops graphically shot dead by the two rappers who took the stage immediately after the last gunshot. This seemed to suck the energy out of the crowd, and the nine-song interlude that followed by Daz and Kurupt – members of Snoop’s Dogg Pound collective of musicians – felt like an opening act plunked in the middle of the show. The old-school beats and MCing were solid, but this crowd was here for Mr. Dogg.

When Snoop returned to the stage after Tha Dogg Pound’s set, he came roaring back – cracking off “Drop It Like It’s Hot” while wearing a brand new Brewers hat. Highlights of the home stretch of the show included the absolutely raunchy, absolutely delightful “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Have None/Super Uncomfortable Listening to This Next to Your Boss),” The Lady of Rage rapping “Afro Puffs” and the classic “Gin and Juice.” 

I was kind of hoping that the latter’s last, hard-stop “biatch!” would be the show’s final word, but Snoop closed out the show with extreme good vibes. He called out the beauty and diversity in the (mostly white) crowd before beginning what he called “our national anthem”: “Young, Wild & Free.” It was a sweet, heartfelt finish to a show that I thoroughly enjoyed – as did several people whom the MilMag contingent spoke to on the way out of the venue.

Reviews for Poto’s 5,700-capacity outdoor space were mostly solid as well, though there were a few notable shortcomings. 

The stage was impressive enough to hold a star as big as Snoop and his ensemble. For the crowd, there’s lots of room to spread out. Folding chairs provide the bulk of the general-admission seating, but there’s also plenty of standing room and lots of picnic-style tables at the back for chilling out. The all-inclusive, bilevel VIP tents offering cushy seats and an elevated viewpoint are great if you can foot the cost ($249). (MilMag was granted media passes to this area.)  

There were some venue issues that should be addressed before the next show, the two-day Tejano Fest July  27-28. 

The drink situation for general-admission ticketholders ($89 for Snoop) was very bad. Beverages were only available to people with a wristband good for five beers etc. that cost $45 or $60 depending on beverage tier. Wristbands were available for purchase in the casino beforehand, but the line to purchase it in the venue was extremely long; people reported waiting as long as 45 minutes just before the show began for their five-drink minimum. Hopefully they could share with a friend; I don’t want to drink five beers etc. at a concert.

And the sound for this show was not great. The music was mostly fine, but the between-song banter that brings the local flavor to a show was really tough to hear. At one surreal point I thought, “Did he just say Kazakhstan?” only to discover that the female pop trio KeshYou that performed following that interlude was indeed from Kazakhstan as they graciously thanked Snoop for the platform.