It was a slightly warm and sunny day in Irvine, California, the perfect day for Slightly Stoopid to set up shop at Great Park Live, a new outdoor venue with a Pacman hot air balloon for fans to get an aerial view of the venue. It is replacing 5 Points Amphitheater as a temporary venue till the new permanent venue which is estimated to open summer of 2028. The Step Into The Sun Tour has hit over 30 cities this summer coming to an end on August 17th in Santa Barbara. Slightly Stoopid brought out Iration and Little Stranger in support.
Little Stranger Warm Up the Crowd, Iration Turn Up the Heat
Little Stranger hit the stage with the sun in the background. A crowd amongst the shade of the stage was ready to go. They played their fan favorites like Simply Business, Sing It High, Kama Sumatra, Brain Fog, and Coffee and a Joint. Little Stranger brought out Daniel Snell to play the harmonica and Kyle from Slightly Stoopid joined them as well during their set to hit a few verses.
As the sun set it became time to get the summer night party going with Iration. The crowd was ready for the day tripping party to turn up a few degrees. The start of the set was a mixture of older songs with the newer tracks. They played their new single with Little Stranger. The band also did a few covers. A fan favorite sing-along was a Steve Miller band cover of The Joker. Miles from Slightly Stoopid came out to sing as they covered Shaggy’s song Angel. They ended their set with more singalongs and fan favorites with Falling and Time Bomb.
A High-Energy Finale Under the OC Sky
The night was all set up for what every Stoopidhead had been waiting for. House of Pain’s Jump Around was played to get the crowd moving. The crowd went wild as soon as Stoopid was announced onstage. They busted out a new intro this summer they played named “Niceness” and then they went straight into some classics. One of these classics was Wicked Rebel as Stoopid swizzled into 2am which really got the crowd going and puffs of clouds overtook the audience. The “swizzle” is a famous move when Miles and Kyle from Slightly Stoopid trade instruments on stage, which can be expected a couple of times per show. Stoopid played newer songs like Good Life and Happy. Miles played his old song Prophet and a video of Bradley Nowell in the background had the crowd talking. Next Stoopid brought out Little Stranger to sing “Somebody” as the song was dedicated to Ol’ Dirty Bastard, as the song begins with an ODB sample. After that was a very old school Stoopid song from their early years called “Nobes,” named for a locally famous surf spot in their San Diego neighborhood. The crowd started dancing and moving. Kyle got the crowd to sing in unison during See It No Other Way. With Chali 2na and B Real on a different tour, DJ Z-Trip spun their verses on The Upside Down as Stoopid played along. The band mellowed their set for a bit with songs like Bandelero, Sweet Honey and the crowd lit up the stage with phones and lighters during Closer to the Sun. During this song, Daniel “DeLa” DeLacruz played a long wonderful sax solo which he is well-known for. You can’t go to a Stoopid show and not expect them to play some punk rock & they got the pit moving with Ain’t No Reason.
As the evening was making its way to the end the band started to play their cover of Sublime’s Slow Ride which was recently released. The last song of the night Slightly Stoopid would bring out Little Stranger and Iration for a cover of Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa’s smoking anthem Young, Wild and Free. If you missed the Step Into the Sun tour you can catch Slightly Stoopid next show at Mission Bayfest in San Diego.
Photos and Article by Mark A Dennis