Live Review: De La Soul, Cruz Patterson, Adroc

De La Soul is a band that loves to tour, and they seem to especially love coming to our little corner of the world. Friday night's show at Villa marks the third time they have played in Perth in the last five years and, as always, they came to party.

Cruz Patterson vocalist from Koi Child and Adroc provided pre-show entertainment. The duo mixed a set of modern and classic hip hop records to the slowly growing crowd. However, the crowd treated the sets more as background music - getting their drink on with Villa worryingly just half full 30 minutes before the show started. Thankfully, a last-minute rush pushed in a large crowd just as Posdnuos, Dave and Maseo took to the stage.

With 29 years together, De La Soul is one of the longest-running hip hop groups still touring today. With their first release in nearly 12 years fresh off the press, you would think that the show would be a promo tour for the new record. Instead, this was a set peppered with classic cuts, leaning heavily on their 2004 release The Grind Date (The Grind Date, Verbal Clap, Rock Co Kane Flow). Other cuts that got a great response from the crowd were Dilla Plugged In (a track paying tribute to long-time collaborator J Dilla) and Stakes Is High.

The limited space on the Villa stage was not a problem, with the guys dancing and rapping together while hyping the crowd up. Although only backed by a pair of turntables, they were able to make the crowd act as a live instrument, with heaps of call-and-response action complementing the performance. For those at the front of the stage, it was near constant high fives, with fans being pulled up onto the stage for bear hugs. Throughout the show fans were passing up records, hats, posters and even a pair of kicks to get signed. The positivity in the crowd was high; you could see the love these guys have for their fans.

Surprisingly, there was no reference to the recent US Election, with nearly every hip hop act that has toured recently making a comment to the crowd about it. De La Soul have never been a hugely political act like Talib Kweli or Public Enemy, but still it was a little unexpected.

After a quick break, the crowd called them back on stage to play a couple of their most famous cuts. De La Soul first dropped Gorillaz collab Feel Good Inc, before the funky strains of Me Myself And I. But when the bass and sax from Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) played, Posdnuos jumped out into the crowd to sing and dance for a great finale.

Should see these guys back in the next 18 months. Hopefully.