[Editor's note: Over the holiday season, SonicNet is looking back at 1999's top stories, chosen by our editors and writers. This story originally ran on Friday, March 5.]

SAN FRANCISCO — Lauryn Hill ruled the stage like a 23-year-old female version of soul "godfather" James Brown.

Fresh from her recent Grammy Awards triumph — in which she won five trophies, including Album of the Year — singer and sometime Fugees member Hill brought a celebratory energy to the stage of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium Wednesday night .

But it wasn't her past accolades which so impressed the crowd. Rather, it was something much less tangible.

"The show just maintained such a great energy the whole way through," 26-year-old Tonika Howard said as she exited the theater.

Fronting a 17-piece band that included no fewer than three backup singers, three keyboardists and three horn players, Hill sashayed across the stage of the sold-out venue for nearly two hours during a solo show that touched upon soul, reggae, gospel, blues and jazz, while still retaining the hip-hop sensibility Hill is best known for.

The Fugees singer is in the midst of her first solo tour and just came off record-breaking Grammy wins — most by a female artist and the first Album of the Year award to a rap artist.

Dressed in a form-fitting denim skirt and white tank top, high-heeled shoes and a knit cap, she commanded her crack backing band's stop-on-a-dime precision while working her way through songs from her multiplatinum solo debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, some Fugees hits, and snatches of hip-hop and soul standards.

The celebratory vibe of the show was one of the reasons fans such as Howard stayed on their feet until the final note.

"I've never seen a hip-hop show like that before, with all those instruments [onstage]," she said, after the show. "And I was happy that all these young adults could remain positive like her and get along with no fighting or drama."

Hill took the stage after a crowd-rousing 45-minute set by dirty South Atlanta rappers Outkast. Lead rappers Dre (Andre Benjamin) and Big Boi (born Antwan Patton) led a group that included a live percussionist, a DJ and a bass/guitar player through a set that included their rap-funk hit

"Rosa Parks" (RealAudio

excerpt).

Entering the dark stage following a recording of reggae legend Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" and a gospel-tinged vocal number, Hill and her band immediately set a tone that appeared to hark back to the legendary late '50s-early '60s soul revue shows at Harlem's Apollo Theater.

In addition to trios of keyboardist, vocalists and horn players, the stage was crowded with two guitarists, a bass player, a DJ and two percussionists.

Hill emphasized music over visuals — the set design consisted solely of a row of false-front high-school lockers — as she took her team of musicians through revamped versions of a number of Miseducation tracks. The soulful "Superstar" was retrofitted with a dose of gospel fervor and

"Lost Ones" (RealAudio

excerpt) was sped up into a hard-edged rap-funk jam interspersed

with bits of calypso and dancehall reggae toasting.

Looping tracks together to create a seamless jam and stretching arrangements out with a number of freestyle rhymes, Hill expanded on Miseducation's already eclectic vibe by mixing in bits of instantly recognizable songs by soul stars the O'Jays and Stevie Wonder and new-school rappers Jay-Z and Nas.

She left the stage early in the show to change clothes while DJ Leon Higgins provided a lesson in state-of-the-art turntablism — juggling beats on the wheels of steel while literally juggling vinyl in the air and scratching records with his shirt pulled over his head. Hill's drummer played a series of solos, first on his kit, then on a set of timbales and finally on a trio of plastic buckets.

When the singer returned in a new outfit, a playful 20-minute old-school-style hip-hop "battle" ensued in which Hill and the musicians traded licks with Higgins and Hill's sidekick MC, Ademola McMullen, on tunes by the Jackson 5 and Stevie Wonder and a number of hip-hop classics and underground jams.

Bay Area guitar legend Carlos Santana, reprising the classical guitar work he provided on Miseducation, joined Hill for a reverent version of the song "To Zion."

Santana, a wide smile plastered across his face, hung around after his cameo to dance exuberantly on the side of the stage as Hill and gang closed the show with a raucous, celebratory run through her first solo hit, "Doo Wop (That Thing)"

(RealAudio excerpt).

The show ended with encores of the Fugees' breakthrough 1996 hit, a cover of Roberta Flack's R&B classic "Killing Me Softly With His Song," and the sedate Miseducation ballad "Everything Is Everything."