My review of De La Soul @ Kentish Town Forum, London 21/05/2005 (+ Pics)

[On The Edge of Insanity]

I got in the venue pretty early, got a pint and got up to the front. The first support act on was some guy called Blaq I. He did three or four songs, nothing particulary special though. Next on was Doc Brown. I'd heard some good things about him before, and he was pretty dope, will probably give his album a listen to see if its worth buying.

After a DJ set, the next act on was the Quantic Soul Orchestra. I suggest if you ever get a chance to see them that you definitely check them out, cause they are real dope. They are basically like a eight piece funk band, and have got some tight tracks. They played for around forty minutes, and definitely got the crowd in a good mood and ready to party. After they finished another DJ came on, but his set was pretty boring, just the standard hiphop gig tracks, and he didn't bring anything new to the table.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Maseo came out on stage and took up his position behind the turntables. The lights dimmed, and he went through a grip of Tribe Called Quest classics getting the crowd warmed up. Pos and Trugoy then came out on stage and went straight into "Verbal Clap" from the Grind Date. They followed that with "Much More", before going into a little interlude where they each got assigned their specific areas of the crowd to hype up. From that point on they went through loads of tracks from their various albums including "Ooh", "Me, Myself & I", "All Good", "Potholes in my Lawn", and "Stakes is High". The beat then dropped from "Ego Trippin", the crowd went crazy, and De La got everyone to do the shouted intro part over about three or four times cause they didn't think it was loud enough, rather disappointingly they only did the first four or so lines of the actual track though once they got into it. It was similar with "Rock Kokaine Flow" where they did Pos's first verse up until the first slowdown like six or seven times, getting the crowd pumped up for each time, but the rest of the song would have been nice. Pos then said that they needed to get some girls up on stage for the next track which resulted in a rush of girls to the stage, and the whole stage becoming full of girls. Trugoy advised they were showing love to the ladies who love hiphop just like the men do. They did "Baby Phat" with the girls on stage, and then rather hilariously "Shopping Bags", still with all the girls dancing away. They left the stage after that song, the crowd started chanting "De La, De La", and out of nowhere Booty Brown from Tha Pharcyde jumped across the stage and gestured for more noise before jumping straight off stage again. Maseo came back out, and they then did "The Grind Date", "Itsoweezee" and "Ring Ring Ring Ha Hey Hey" before leaving for good to a massive ovation.

Overall, De La were really dope live, and I'd definitely go see them live again if I got the chance. The only slight disappointments were no full versions of "Ego Trippin" or "Rock Kokaine Flow", and why they played mediorce tracks like "Shoomp" and then not "The Magic Number" or "Say No Go", but other than that I can have no complaints because they definitely give you your monies worth, plus Maseo truly is crazy.

Pics:
Quantic Soul Orchestra:


De La Soul:

[UKnowWhatItIs: welcome to my traps....game over]

lucky bastard

[Trauma-san]

Well, I would have stuck out being so white, but I would have liked to seen them.  I'm with you, The Magic Number is fucking awesome.  I like "Stakes Is High" too, because they all flow so hard on it.  Funny that they played shit like Potholes in my Lawn, lol. 

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Yeah, "Potholes in my Lawn" is classic though, so I wasn't gonna complain about that one.

[Suga Foot]

I'm gonna go to this

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Yeah man you should definitely go to that, Maseo is a crazy dude, been to one of his DJ sets before and he definitely gets everyone moving.