Nacho Picasso and Blue Sky Black Death Smoked Neumos Last Night

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Weed is still technically illegal in Seattle, so most stoners try at least a little bit to keep their habit on the down low. This can be especially tricky business at concerts, since it's against the rules to smoke tobacco indoors these days too. Last night, however, the crowd at Neumos simply did not give a fuck. Blunts were openly rolled and sparked with no repercussions from security, and by the time Nacho Picasso took the stage late in the evening, the place was as cloudy as a Dutch coffeeshop.

The hotbox atmosphere suited a show that was accompanied by an ADD projection loop of cartoons and old movie clips that ran the gamut from Busby Berkley to Boogie Nights. Nacho delivered his signature blend of goofball rhymes about getting high, getting laid, and getting worn down by too much getting high and getting laid, while his three-man production team Blue Sky Black Death hunched over keyboards and cranked out doomsday electronic beats.

It was, according to the billing, the first time Nacho and Blue Sky Black Death shared the stage, even though they have now collaborated on a pair of records. The trio brought live instrumentation (an electric guitar, in addition to the keys/synths), and some gravitas too, as the all-black clad producers simply cranked out the jams nonstop, without so much as a smile or a peep of banter.

The microphones were bogarted by the rappers, with Nacho and his sidekick Jarv Dee (who also peformed solo as an opening act) stomping around and working the crowd into a frenzy. At one point, the all-ages (read: teenage) group in the front rows threw several random articles of clothing on stage, including a flannel shirt and a hoodie. The shirtless Picasso, his torso almost entirely covered by intricate tats, simply chucked the garments back and continued going about his business.

The only flaw during the show was that the volume on Jarv Dee's mic seemed to be several notches higher than Nacho's, causing the hype man to often drown out the front man. Not that the audience seemed to mind much. When Jarv Dee bellowed "Who the fuck is high in this bitch?!" the response was as an emphatic a roar as several hundred cottonmouth-afflicted throats could muster.