london symphony orchestra

Almost three decades since it was the subject of a throwaway joke on The Simpsons, and more than seven months after it became a reality, Cypress Hill are issuing their 2024 performance with the London Symphony Orchestra as a live album and concert film.

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

The eagerly-anticipated show, which took place on July 10, 2024, has its roots in a 1996 episode of The Simpsons which sees the titular family’s patriarch going on tour as a member of a Lollapalooza-style music festival.

The “Homerpalooza” episode aired on May 19, 1996, as the penultimate installment of season seven. Homer, Marge and the Simpson family head backstage at the Springfield Fairgrounds where Cypress Hill and other performers are hanging out. Event staff members are surprised to see the London Symphony Orchestra show up, and suspect that the cannabis-advocating crew may have had something to do with it. “Somebody ordered the London Symphony Orchestra. Possibly while high, Cypress Hill I’m looking in your direction,” they said.

A beloved joke amongst fans of the series and the band, the Californian group turned fiction into fact last year when they appeared at the Royal Albert Hall in London to perform 1993 album Black Sunday and other tracks while dressed in suits.

Black Sunday arrived in July of that year and debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 261,000 album units sold in the first week. Triple-platinum lead single “Insane in the Brain” went on to crack the Billboard Hot 100 top 20, where it peaked at No. 19.

“It’s been something that we’ve talked about for many years since The Simpsons episode first aired,” B-Real told the BBC ahead of the highly-anticipated performance. “So it’s very special for us. And it’s coming off the heels of our 30th anniversary for our Black Sunday album. We’ve played a lot of historical venues throughout our career and stuff like that, but nothing as prestigious as this.”

Now, the full show – titled Cypress Hill and the London Symphony Orchestra: Black Sunday Live at the Royal Albert Hall – will be hitting theaters throughout the U.S. and Canada for three days and on March 30, 31, and April 2. Full ticketing information can be found here.

Two months later, a full recording of the performance will be released on June 6 via Mercury. To accompany the announcement, the band have released a video of 1995 track “Illusions,” which originally featured on their Black Sunday follow-up Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom.

“It’s a trip to see that hip hop can be done in this form — and at a venue as prestigious as the Royal Albert Hall,” B-Real said in a statement. “It was truly an honor and a privilege, and now that experience can be shared.”

”I’ve always been excited by the idea of merging genres, and to do it with the most prolific hip hop group of all time and the most exquisite symphony orchestra in the world was an honor,” added Troy Miller, who handled arrangement and conductor duties of the performance. 

“The band gave me free rein on the arrangements and we made something truly unique and mesmerizing – what a sublime collaboration!”