Snoop Dogg delivers incredible performance to an overbaked Auckland crowd

REVIEW: It’s hard to describe the star power of Snoop Dogg.

A legend of rap, he has been able to stay as relevant as ever after three decades in the music industry, and his Auckland concert on Saturday night quickly made it apparent why.

When he arrives at Trusts Arena after an energetic performance from hip-hop collective D12, the crowd goes wild – no, feral – for the Dogg.

It makes sense he chose the braggadocios title I Wanna Thank Me tour: as he breezes through hit after hit with oozing charisma, including classics Gin and Juice and Nuthin But a “G” Thang, his status as a legend becomes more and more indisputable.

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King of the feature verse, Snoop brings on 2000s hit P.I.M.P and Katy Perry’s California Gurls​, just to perform his remix version. The crowd goes nuts for it.

He’s the gangster with a heart of gold, and that’s why, when pairs of strippers bare all for the crowd while he lights up, everyone just rolls with it – living young, wild, and free.

About half an hour into the set, the big Dogg takes a smoke break, leaving the show up to his DJ and NZ rapper Tom Francis, with whom Snoop Dogg has a song called Lifestyle.

The random switch-up in the show caught the crowd off guard, and despite a valiant effort from Francis, he just couldn’t grab the attention of the crowd, and the DJ took over a little longer than anyone expected.

From there, the entire crowd energy just seemed to fall flat – after, the crowd seemed to follow and take a smoke break of their own.

The power and energy of the perfectly performed first half hour disappeared into smoke, which was perhaps also the culprit – too much weed, too little energy.

Even Snoop, fresh off his own smoke break, couldn’t believe how much spirit the crowd lost, repeatedly calling “I can’t hear you!” into his microphone during Snoops Upside Ya Head, the easiest song in the world to party to.

Meanwhile, in the crowd a fight breaks out between two men that takes six security guards to break up, rollies are being passed around left, right, and centre, and girls fall over each other.

It was almost embarrassing to see how badly Kiwis seemed to rise to the occasion of seeing the rap veteran live, but perhaps by this point in the night their brain’s perspective was some sort of kaleidoscopic fever dream, where even just looking to the person next to you is the most intense feeling in the world.

Or perhaps it was the venue.

While Trusts Arena’s outdoors area was able to boast an eye-watering amount of concert-goers, the space between the ‘VIP’ section and the general crowd seemed ridiculous, and perhaps if this review was written from the general admission area, the crowd energy would seem even more abysmal.

You would assume a VIP area would only take up 1/3 or a 1/4 of the crowd, however this supposedly exclusive part of the venue seemed to take up half the crowd space – you almost have no choice but to buy the more expensive ticket.

Despite all of this, Snoop Dogg delivered an incredible performance reflective of his legendary status, and it is undoubtedly worth it to see him live – but perhaps don’t do so in Auckland.

At least punters had the stand-still traffic from a night of three different concerts to reflect.