De La Soul @ The Liquid Room, 13 Nov

Dave: We played in London last week…
Crowd: Boooooo!
Dave: But you cannot fuck with Edinburgh! Let me hear you say Ahhhh!
Crowd: Ahhhh!

Yep, Dave (a.k.a. Trugoy the Dove/Plug Two) sure knows how to rile up a Scottish audience—-or at least his side of the audience. De La Soul’s live M.O. largely consists of Dave and Pos (a.k.a. Posdnuos/Mercenary/Plug One) mercilessly sizing up their respective territories to find out “where the hip-hop/party” is at. So where is it at? Is it over here? No, not loud enough. Is it over here? Now we’re getting somewhere. Soon everyone is making some serious noise, clapping along to Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) like it’s 1991 all over again. This is the year De La Soul celebrates its 20-year run (holy shit), so one would go into this party expecting a nostalgia trip a little bit past its prime, but, damn, those beats are still fresh, those samples are still hot, and, in the world of De La Soul, the day is still always Saturday (even though tonight is Thursday). Pos, Maceo, and Dave keep the show alive with their taunting sense of humor (the three often mocking each other on stage). They still are and always have been the self-reflexive hip-hoppers, and they know what the crowd wants to hear when three-fingers shoot up in the air and Magic Number’s bass-beat kicks in. For a few minutes the D.A.I.S.Y. Age (Da Inner Sound, Y’all) is back and we all wish we had hi-top fades. [Jorge Marticorena]