Words by Justin CF LintagPhotography by Christopher Vallejo10:15 PM Wednesday night @ Venue on Granville. Hip-hop enthusiasts start slowly filing in trying to be fashionably early for once, and for one reason only – to see the opening act for the evening. South Cali straphangers, Pacific Division, weren’t just the openers, they were half the reason fans bought tickets to the show and they did not disappoint. Mibbs, Like and Be Young were purely animated with ample crowd interaction and an impromptu cypher, and I hate to make comparisons but their energy as well as their catalogue really are a throwback to the Pharcyde/Souls of Mischief era. The one downside of the night had to be that their set only lasted about 30 minutes, when really their track record, pun intended, is at a caliber that parallels, or in my eyes surpasses, that of the Cool Kids. But whatever, that didn’t matter, it’s just a beautiful thing to see these two groups recognize the power of a collaborative stint on the road together. Pac Div did all the joints that the crowd wanted to hear including “Whiplash”, “Paper”, “Shutup” and their sonically-NWA-inspired record, “Mayor”. I don’t know if you see it but it seems like Pac Div is pulling inspiration from both sides of the old 90′s Westcoast dichotomy.When Cool Kids came out I did a 360 of the room and saw it pretty well packed. Mikey and Chuck definitely had a more Jigga-type stage presence, minimalist, less hype and less jumping. If Pac Div were the young, exuberant pack then this duo was the seasoned sophomores. Knocker after knocker blared out the stage and you can tell from fans mimicking the words to each song that there was so much anticipation brewing for their soon-to-come debut opus, When Fish Ride Bicycles.They ran through their material from Gone Fishin’ first and then saved the cult classics for the latter end of the performance. They went from “Gold and a Pager” to “Pennies” to “88″ (paying homage to their interpolation of Nas’ lyric and inserting the beat from “Made You Look”) and the hype only grew throughout. They exited on the strength of the material from their first couple mixtapes but upon leaving the stage they were summoned back by the crowd who by this time were calling for an encore, chanting, “COOL KIDS, COOL KIDS!”.