De La Soul rocks the Cleveland scene

Plug one isn't 19 years young anymore. De La Soul isn't Dead. They're just all grown up now. But they're still fun, slick and put on a damn good show.

Rescheduled from the orginal March date because DJ Maseo had a newborn, the show could have been at Oberlin. Out of the 520 people allowed at Peabody's, 479 were from Oberlin. Or maybe just 397. Something like that.

But the reason this show went over well whereas their Hales Gym show three years prior didn't was because of the crowd. It wasn't the world's feistiest group, but they interacted well with the Plugs and jumped when they should've, shouted out when they should've and waved their hands in the air like they just didn't care.

The set started with numbers from the Soul's most recent album, Stakes is High. Posdenuos took stage left and Trugoy, right, and they competed for the loudest crowd.

"Hey, we're from New York. From this little teeny island called..." and they bumped into "Long Island" followed by others from Stakes is High..

They sparred in between songs, which were all right-on, tight and clean, while Maseo threw in samples of everything from the Beastie Boys to MC Lyte and Black Sheep. Their sound mixed between the fun, playful feel of Three Feet High and Rising and the slicker, more produced later albums.

While the Plugs One and Two rapped out front, Maseo spun in back, throwing back Hennessey and Heineken, laughing with groupies on the side of the stage. He even did vocals for a song, grinning the whole time.

The show went back in time, visiting Buhloon Mind State with playful versions of "In The Woods," "I am I be" and others, with samples from the Beastie Boys.

"What do you want to hear?" Posdenuos asked the crowd. Shouts for selections from De La Soul is Dead and Three Feet High... were the most popular, so they launched into some updated versions of the oldies but goodies such as "Saturday," "Me Myself and I," "Potholes in my Lawn" and teased the audience with some of "Eye Know."

"Roll your head like Jesus!" shouted Trugoy, and Maseo threw on some P-Funk. Pos and Trugoy tested the audience's music appreciation, shouting out "yell if you like fill-in-the-blank." Vanilla Ice didn't go down so well.

While the music wasn't as polished as their last album, it was a graduated step from the first albums, which were playful boy hip-hop victories. They got the bitties going and brought back sweet memories of the D.A.I.S.Y. age. All things considered, it's not 1988 anymore, and the Soul can see that. So they've acted accordingly, which was best demonstrated with a funky version of "Buddy" which closed up the set.

Are ya with me? Posdenous from De La Sould had the crowd hopping. (photos by Laren Rusin)