It’s high time we meet. As the newest addition to the RMR team, I’ve served up for you today a piping hot batch of my signature cannabis and music pairings- and it’s a special When We Were Young edition to boot. I’ve selected four of California’s finest products (flower, edibles, and preroll) that aligned perfectly with the full albums each of these classic bands performed at last month’s festival. Let’s dig in.
When We Were Young Festival: Four Cannabis & Album Pairings
As we close out the third week of October, a peculiar energy begins to linger in the air.
It’s a feeling of transition. A sense that this shitfest of a year is finally starting to come to a close, appropriately memorialized with celebrations of the harvest. We honor our dearly departed friends and family with Day of the Dead festivities. We plan for our final end-of-year push at work and lock our plans for MJBizCon.
And most importantly, we find reprieve through the music festivals of the fall.
Now, you may not know this about me, but I was raised on Midwestern pop punk and emo. Three years ago, Las Vegas’s When We Were Young Festival hit the scene, a worthy candidate to accept the torch being passed down by Warped Tour, as their 20+ year run finally came to a close.
Speaking of Warped Tour, how many of you discovered some of your favorite bands from their Compilation Albums? Oh come on, don’t bullshit me. I know you wouldn’t be hip to Armor for Sleep without your copy of Warped ‘05.
My car is packed with my checkerboard vans, buffalo-style Cheetos, black tee shirts…and enough cannabis to distract myself from the fact that I’m now on the wrong side my 30s, driving 4.5 hours into an arid desert in a desperate attempt to reclaim a small sliver of my youth.
A time before worrying about making my rent. That sweet-spot era between Prop 215 and Prop 64, in which quality genetics mattered more than THC %. Oh, if we could only go back to those days with a message of caution about what was coming just around the corner…
For 2024, When We Were Young has adapted a new format, in which artists from Coheed & Cambria to Thursday to Mom Jeans are each playing through the entirety of their most-revered albums. Given I’ve started to carve out a niche for myself pairing albums with cannabis, this felt like the prime opportunity to select a few of these sets, these classic albums to couple with the veritable smorgasbord of edibles, joints, and beverage shots I’ll be shoving into my underwear to sneak past the security team.
Dear God…35 years old. Not much has changed for me, has it?
The Pairings
Album: They’re Only Chasing Safety by Underoath
Pairing: Cotton Censored (flower, 5g smalls) by Traditional
“Wait…are these guys a Christian band?!?”
The first show of my When We Were Young festival was Tampa’s Underoath, playing their immortal 2004 melodic hardcore/screamo album, “They’re Only Chasing Safety”. Even if you didn’t listen to it, I’d wager you’re familiar with the album cover of a steely-eyed woman in an oxygen mask.
What makes this album’s success so surprising is the entire makeup of this band changed between ‘03 and ‘04. Underoath should have been dead in the water after losing their vocalist, guitarist, and bassist, but instead, they rose from the ashes with blistering energy.
Sure, they sound a little like someone put Brand New, The Used, and Hawthorne Heights into a blender and topped it with a sprinkling of Godsmack…but is that really so bad?
“Reinventing Your Exit” is the best-known single off of the album, spawning a video that chewed up airtime on MTV2; but “It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door” is my favorite of the bunch, smacking you in the face with its intensity from the very first bar.
Walking into any festival is a similar intensity, as you are suddenly one of thousands struggling to plan your next move while a cacophony of sounds blares at you from all angles. It can be disorienting, and I aimed to start my When We Were Young more relaxed and carefree.
Given this was the first set, I was able to pregame on the walk over with several joints I rolled up of LA-based Traditional’s Cotton Censored flower (indica dominant). Overall, it was a perfect pairing, with this Zkittlez x NC-17 cross delivering potent notes of sweet cream and pine. As Underoath hammered the audience with drum kicks and screaming, I was in a state of blissful relaxation without any of the sedating “couch lock” that is a death knell to a productive festival.
Protip: I’d suggest trying their 1.8g infused preroll variant of this Cotton Censored flower. It’s expensive, at nearly the same price as a 5g pack of their smalls, but is a prime example of an “entry-level” hash hole that won’t overwhelm if you’re new to the form-factor.
Album: Dusk and Summer by Dashboard Confessional
Pairing: Papa’s Select Live Ice Water Hash Gummies, Grape Pie x Animal Cookies (10 x 10mg)
This set was one of the low points of When We Were Young, mainly because ‘06’s “Dusk and Summer” was a poor album choice when A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar is what brought us all to Dashboard in the first place!
Look, “Vindicated” was good. Reminiscing about the “Spider-Man 2” soundtrack with the rando standing next to us was admittedly, fun – and true to what this festival was all about. But my interest level was at an all-time low as I decided to slink away from the throngs of fans clogging the main stages to catch their set from a more comfortable vantage point near the back.
Chris Carrabba’s voice is still on point. The band was tight. But if I’m not hearing “Ghost of a Good Thing”, you’ve lost me.
It was still early in the day, so the timing aligned nicely to slam down a fist full of Papa & Barkley’s finest craft edibles, the Grape Pie x Animal Cookies (aka Granimals) gummies from their Papa’s Select line. At 10mg/piece, they pack a decent punch and it’s no chore to take down multiple, especially given how light and refreshing they taste, damned near melting in your mouth.
What impressed me most about this product is its use of strain-specific cannabis sourced from one of my favorite farms, Sunrise Mountain. Anyone who has sampled Sunrise Mountain’s signature Creme de Luna or Blueberry Muffin will immediately understand why I’m comfortable giving them so much hype. Purveyors of premium Sun + Earth Certified sungrown, these award-winning craft cultivators hail from deep into the forests of Humboldt County and champion values I align with: sustainable practices, social equity, and incredibly terpene-rich products.
If you’re growing sick of gummies that just offer the same fruity flavors, this is a nice change of pace, as you’ll immediately detect the high-quality cannabis used in its formulation. These will melt away your stress, pain, and anxiety, leaving you perfectly content after they kick in, regardless of the setlist.
Album: Stay What You Are by Saves The Day
Pairing: Blue Guava (3.5g flower) by Zatix
I met High Chris, the founder of Zatix, at the Cannabis Chamber of Commerce event in Venice a day before I left for Vegas. He gave me a pouch of his Blue Guava, and as difficult as it was to resist my urge to smoke it immediately, I persevered and rolled it up into several joints for the show. As When We Were Young approached its halfway point, I started jonesing for this uplifting hybrid – along with a change of pace from all of the emo and screamo.
Saves The Day was my favorite band in High School. I legitimately felt that “At Your Funeral” was one of the best songs ever composed.
Maybe my tastes have changed since then, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying their set as if I was still 16. It was my second time seeing Saves the Day – I caught them last year at the House of Blues in Anaheim – and while I couldn’t see them tour in the 2000s, it was apparent both times that they hadn’t lost a step.
This five-piece formed back in 1997, while its members were still in high school, and built a loyal following in their native New Jersey. While Can’t Slow Down and Through Being Cool both achieved some success, it was this third album that broke them through into the mainstream. Sure, it was a bit…poppier than their past efforts, but it brought them onto the late-night talk show circuit with a live performance of “At Your Funeral” on Conan O’Brien that I revisit to this day. As “Stay What You Are” steadily rose up the alternative charts, they were tapped to open for Blink-182 and Green Day, securing their place amongst pop-punk royalty.
If you know me well, you know I’m a sucker for the works of Bret Easton Ellis, so any band to put out a song titled “This Is Not an Exit” has won my allegiance as a fan for life. “Cars and Calories” and “All I’m Losing Is Me” also should not be missed.
As an aside: I really like Chris. Sure, you can find others with 20+ years of industry experience, but how many of them use their social media presence (@highchris.420) to help educate others on how to build successful businesses in the space? He’s one of the few accounts you can follow to actually learn something, almost like a free mentor/advisor.
Naturally, you can see his care for the plant expressed in his Blue Guava (Gelato #33 x Pink Guava). They prioritize flavor and powerful genetics to deliver a superior smoke, with this example rich in sweet tropical fruit and fresh-cut flowers.
The Zatix Grape Guava is stellar…but the Blue is even better. An all-day cultivar that perfectly complimented the swell of emotions I was feeling from the nostalgia bomb Saves The Day dropped on me.
Album: All’s Well That Ends Well by Chiodos
Pairing: Tropic Thunder (Gelato 41 x Animal Mintz x Pink Certz Hash Hole) by Terp Mansion
A full 0.75g of rosin encased in 2g of premium flower.
I realize that for many humans, this is more cannabis than they’d ever smoke in a week – or even a month – let alone during a single sesh.
I’ve been saving this hash hole for just the right moment, and the Chiodos set did not disappoint. I shared it with another industry buddy of mine and we both agreed that its potency would make this a poor choice for anyone but regular, heavy consumers (the people we offered a hit to politely, and probably smartly, declined).
As you can imagine, we both loved it.
The burn was essentially flawless, with the Pink Certz (courtesy of Compound Genetics) forming a nice donut hole. Pink Certz is truly a special cultivar, winning SF’s prestigious Transbay Challenge a few years back. The smoke was simultaneously gassy, minty, sweet, and sour, delivering a complex terpene profile that lingered long after it burned down.
This energetic and uplifting cannabis poured gasoline onto the fire raging at the Allianz stage. Singer Craig Owens unleashed a torrent of pent-up fury, as Chiodos hadn’t performed together for 8 years. All’s Well That Ends Well, is hands down, one of the strongest debut albums of this era. I’m obsessed with these guys – and not just because they came up playing the same small venue, Michigan’s Flint Local 432, where I grew up going to hardcore shows.
Every song on this album is a banger. “One Day All Women Will Become Monsters,” “Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute on the Creek,” and “The Words ‘Best Friend’ Become Redefined” (geeze…why were titles so long back then?) comprise my unholy trinity. While not on this album, give their cover of Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta” a spin to help immerse yourself into their sound.
It was the perfect way to close out my When We Were Young. Fortunately, they announced at the festival that they’ll officially be touring again in 2025. Looks like I’m going to have to find another one of these Tropic Thunders for their inevitable stop in LA.
For more updates on When We Were Young Festival, stay tuned to RespectMyRegion.com
