Mr. Juice
08-09-2007, 09:35 AM
I understand that there is probably a thread or two discussing the Beastie Boys’ show last night in Central Park (Aug. 8), but I started a new one nonetheless. I actually asked permission from Aunt Ruth (a relative from Mike’s side of the family), and not only did she give me her blessing, but she also gave me a dozen homemade oatmeal cookies.
Here’s a quick snap shot of New York yesterday:
In the wee morning hours, the heaven’s opened up and flooded most of the subway system (some say they even saw a tornado blow through Brooklyn). Eventually the sun woke up, and as if not to outdone by the rain clouds, put its own beating on NYC. The mixture of floodwaters and an overzealous sun turned New York City into one big vegetable steamer, with all of us acting as pieces of broccoli inside of it.
Most folks arrived to the concert in shorts and t-shirts. The “dress-to-impress” thing didn’t go over well last night (for obvious reasons). There was also some confusion as to when the show actually started. I heard 7PM, so I got there at 6:30PM. I waited and I waited some more. 7PM, 7:15PM, 7:30PM, 7:45PM, you’re getting the picture, right?
As time inched by, I scoped out the Beastie Boys brand new instruments, all of which were incased in clear plastic (even Money Mark’s keyboard). I swayed a bit to JD Samson’s (Le Tigre) pre-set mix, but I didn’t get my dance on, cause I had to save myself for the Beasties. I also noticed punk rock luminary Timmy Chunks making final adjustments to the stage set-up. He is buds with the Bouncing Souls (one of the world’s greatest punk bands) and the benefactor of Chunksaah Records. It was nice to see him in a Beastie-capacity last night.
A little after 8PM, the Beastie Boys finally took the stage. There was no Mix Master Mike intro, instead the boys waved to the crowd and went straight for their instruments, opening up with “Time for Livin’”. If memory serves correct, they followed it up with “Gratitude.” Hearing the Beasties play their older punk stuff (“Tough Guy,” “Heart Attack Man,” “Egg Raid on Mojo”) brought a tear to my eye, because it’s almost been ten years since they’ve busted out this material live.
The crowd last night was a courteous crowd—very little moshing (except towards the end) and everyone made sure to dance in there own personal space. Amazingly, there were very few “concert-cutters” throughout the evening (the people who squeeze their way through the crowd and stand right in front of you). There were a couple knucklehead moments though. A guy who had a bit too much to drink started his own mosh pit during “Super Disco Breakin’.” He later befriended another knucklehead, who wore a t-shirt proudly proclaiming: “I Get Shit Faced, That’s How I Handle Stress.” Later in the night, after finishing off their liquor, they tried to bodysurf a third knucklehead to the front of the crowd. He didn’t stay up for long.
The Beastie Boys didn’t deviate too much from their bread-and-butter set-list tracks (“Root Down,” “Sure Shot,” “Shake Your Rump,” “Pass the Mic,” “Skills to Pay the Bills,” “So What’cha Want?”), although they did do an interesting new take on “An Open Letter to NYC,” which MCA dedicated to the Central Parkers who couldn’t make it into the fenced-in portion of the venue. Mix Master Mike dropped some new goodies on “Body Movin’” and “Pass the Mic.” He also tickled in a new instrumental on “Triple Trouble,” but never dropped it in completely.
On the banter-tip the Beasties were on-point as always. Before “Egg Raid on Mojo,” the Beastie Boys were shouting-out old New York City venues that they had played. They then told the origin of “Egg Raid on Mojo.” Mojo was a doorman at a club who wouldn’t let the Beastie Boys enter. To exact revenge, the Beasties pelted him with eggs. Mike finished the story by saying, “I’m not saying it was right—I’m just saying that it had happened.”
Mike also made mention that he took the “A” train to the show in Central Park. When Adrock doubted him, he replied, “No, I took the ‘A’ Train up here. It took me a real long time. Adam, I’m a man of the people.”
Mike also incorporated a new call-and-response in the Beastie’s live repertoire. It went something like this, “Ooooooooo-weeeeeeeeee!”
Here are some other memorable moments in Beastie-banter from last night:
Adrock looking over the crowd in Central Park
Adrock: (in his best soliloquy voice) Here we are in New York City. It’s everything I thought it would be, sky scrapers, big buildings, trees…
Mike D commenting on the Boston show
Mike D: We just got done playing two shows in Boston.
Crowd: Boooo!
Mike D: The shows were actually really good.
Crowd : Boooo!
Mike D: You might get mad at what I’m about to say.
Adrock: Mike, I think you’re losing them.
Mike D: The people in Boston, they said that they dance better than the people in New York.
Crowd: BOOOOOOO!!!
Mike D: So during this next song, you can prove them wrong.
MCA walking across the stage holding a pair of shoes
MCA: In Boston, I got "wicked retawded." I forgot that I had to bring my shows to the show. My wife just brought these from home. I was wearing sneakers the whole time. If you don’t mind I’m going to change my shoes now.
---
A couple times during last night's performance, a group of fans revealed some cleverly made homemade signs. The first one appeared during the Beastie Boys performance of “Sure Shot.” Right as Mike D went into, “I got more action than my man John Woo, and I’ve got mad hits like I was Rod Carew,“ two poster boards went up—one was of legendary baseball slugger Rod Carew, and the other was a poster that read, “Rod Carew Begs to Differ.” The reverse side simply read: “3,053 Hits.” A couple songs later, Adrock said, “Where are those guys with the Rod Carew sign? That sign was kind of confrontational” The guys in the crowd yelled back, “He had a lot of hits!” From behind his drum kit Mike D chimed in, “Yeah, the sign said he had like over 3,000 hits.” MCA joined in on the conversation and begin talking about hits, “Yeah, like Dire Straits, they had a bunch of hits too.”
Later in the set during “Ch-Check It Out’s” stop-down, the same fans held up two more signs. One was a very large number-one finger and the other was a poster that said “Watch the Finger!” MCA, started laughing and pointed out the signs to Mike D. MMM came out from behind his turntables and snapped a picture. Adrock commented, “Man, those guys spent like 15 bucks alone just on making signs for tonight.” Mike D lifted his finger above his head and told the audience, “Just like on the poster over there, hold your index fingers high in the sky.” Adrock mentioned that the index finger might also have another name, and MCA, realizing that the stop-down was longer than normal commented, “Wow, we still got another half of the song to go.” Mike dropped the finger, the crowd said , “fresssssshhhhhh,” and MMM dropped in the beat to finish out the song.
The Beastie Boys closed with “So What’cha Want?” before coming out to “Intergalactic” for the first song of their encore. During the tune, MMM wore some type of light-up, green Power Rangers helmet. Following the song, Mike D looked over at MMM and said, “We got an alien on stage! We got an alien over there—tell the Mayor about that!”
The Beastie Boys followed it up with “Heart Attack Man” and closed out evening with “Sabotage.” Before starting the song, Adrock thanked everyone for coming, mentioned again how cool it was to be playing in Central Park, and finished by explaining, “This is Central Park! Tonight was like Elton John, Diana Ross, and Paul Simon rolled into one.”
Here’s a quick snap shot of New York yesterday:
In the wee morning hours, the heaven’s opened up and flooded most of the subway system (some say they even saw a tornado blow through Brooklyn). Eventually the sun woke up, and as if not to outdone by the rain clouds, put its own beating on NYC. The mixture of floodwaters and an overzealous sun turned New York City into one big vegetable steamer, with all of us acting as pieces of broccoli inside of it.
Most folks arrived to the concert in shorts and t-shirts. The “dress-to-impress” thing didn’t go over well last night (for obvious reasons). There was also some confusion as to when the show actually started. I heard 7PM, so I got there at 6:30PM. I waited and I waited some more. 7PM, 7:15PM, 7:30PM, 7:45PM, you’re getting the picture, right?
As time inched by, I scoped out the Beastie Boys brand new instruments, all of which were incased in clear plastic (even Money Mark’s keyboard). I swayed a bit to JD Samson’s (Le Tigre) pre-set mix, but I didn’t get my dance on, cause I had to save myself for the Beasties. I also noticed punk rock luminary Timmy Chunks making final adjustments to the stage set-up. He is buds with the Bouncing Souls (one of the world’s greatest punk bands) and the benefactor of Chunksaah Records. It was nice to see him in a Beastie-capacity last night.
A little after 8PM, the Beastie Boys finally took the stage. There was no Mix Master Mike intro, instead the boys waved to the crowd and went straight for their instruments, opening up with “Time for Livin’”. If memory serves correct, they followed it up with “Gratitude.” Hearing the Beasties play their older punk stuff (“Tough Guy,” “Heart Attack Man,” “Egg Raid on Mojo”) brought a tear to my eye, because it’s almost been ten years since they’ve busted out this material live.
The crowd last night was a courteous crowd—very little moshing (except towards the end) and everyone made sure to dance in there own personal space. Amazingly, there were very few “concert-cutters” throughout the evening (the people who squeeze their way through the crowd and stand right in front of you). There were a couple knucklehead moments though. A guy who had a bit too much to drink started his own mosh pit during “Super Disco Breakin’.” He later befriended another knucklehead, who wore a t-shirt proudly proclaiming: “I Get Shit Faced, That’s How I Handle Stress.” Later in the night, after finishing off their liquor, they tried to bodysurf a third knucklehead to the front of the crowd. He didn’t stay up for long.
The Beastie Boys didn’t deviate too much from their bread-and-butter set-list tracks (“Root Down,” “Sure Shot,” “Shake Your Rump,” “Pass the Mic,” “Skills to Pay the Bills,” “So What’cha Want?”), although they did do an interesting new take on “An Open Letter to NYC,” which MCA dedicated to the Central Parkers who couldn’t make it into the fenced-in portion of the venue. Mix Master Mike dropped some new goodies on “Body Movin’” and “Pass the Mic.” He also tickled in a new instrumental on “Triple Trouble,” but never dropped it in completely.
On the banter-tip the Beasties were on-point as always. Before “Egg Raid on Mojo,” the Beastie Boys were shouting-out old New York City venues that they had played. They then told the origin of “Egg Raid on Mojo.” Mojo was a doorman at a club who wouldn’t let the Beastie Boys enter. To exact revenge, the Beasties pelted him with eggs. Mike finished the story by saying, “I’m not saying it was right—I’m just saying that it had happened.”
Mike also made mention that he took the “A” train to the show in Central Park. When Adrock doubted him, he replied, “No, I took the ‘A’ Train up here. It took me a real long time. Adam, I’m a man of the people.”
Mike also incorporated a new call-and-response in the Beastie’s live repertoire. It went something like this, “Ooooooooo-weeeeeeeeee!”
Here are some other memorable moments in Beastie-banter from last night:
Adrock looking over the crowd in Central Park
Adrock: (in his best soliloquy voice) Here we are in New York City. It’s everything I thought it would be, sky scrapers, big buildings, trees…
Mike D commenting on the Boston show
Mike D: We just got done playing two shows in Boston.
Crowd: Boooo!
Mike D: The shows were actually really good.
Crowd : Boooo!
Mike D: You might get mad at what I’m about to say.
Adrock: Mike, I think you’re losing them.
Mike D: The people in Boston, they said that they dance better than the people in New York.
Crowd: BOOOOOOO!!!
Mike D: So during this next song, you can prove them wrong.
MCA walking across the stage holding a pair of shoes
MCA: In Boston, I got "wicked retawded." I forgot that I had to bring my shows to the show. My wife just brought these from home. I was wearing sneakers the whole time. If you don’t mind I’m going to change my shoes now.
---
A couple times during last night's performance, a group of fans revealed some cleverly made homemade signs. The first one appeared during the Beastie Boys performance of “Sure Shot.” Right as Mike D went into, “I got more action than my man John Woo, and I’ve got mad hits like I was Rod Carew,“ two poster boards went up—one was of legendary baseball slugger Rod Carew, and the other was a poster that read, “Rod Carew Begs to Differ.” The reverse side simply read: “3,053 Hits.” A couple songs later, Adrock said, “Where are those guys with the Rod Carew sign? That sign was kind of confrontational” The guys in the crowd yelled back, “He had a lot of hits!” From behind his drum kit Mike D chimed in, “Yeah, the sign said he had like over 3,000 hits.” MCA joined in on the conversation and begin talking about hits, “Yeah, like Dire Straits, they had a bunch of hits too.”
Later in the set during “Ch-Check It Out’s” stop-down, the same fans held up two more signs. One was a very large number-one finger and the other was a poster that said “Watch the Finger!” MCA, started laughing and pointed out the signs to Mike D. MMM came out from behind his turntables and snapped a picture. Adrock commented, “Man, those guys spent like 15 bucks alone just on making signs for tonight.” Mike D lifted his finger above his head and told the audience, “Just like on the poster over there, hold your index fingers high in the sky.” Adrock mentioned that the index finger might also have another name, and MCA, realizing that the stop-down was longer than normal commented, “Wow, we still got another half of the song to go.” Mike dropped the finger, the crowd said , “fresssssshhhhhh,” and MMM dropped in the beat to finish out the song.
The Beastie Boys closed with “So What’cha Want?” before coming out to “Intergalactic” for the first song of their encore. During the tune, MMM wore some type of light-up, green Power Rangers helmet. Following the song, Mike D looked over at MMM and said, “We got an alien on stage! We got an alien over there—tell the Mayor about that!”
The Beastie Boys followed it up with “Heart Attack Man” and closed out evening with “Sabotage.” Before starting the song, Adrock thanked everyone for coming, mentioned again how cool it was to be playing in Central Park, and finished by explaining, “This is Central Park! Tonight was like Elton John, Diana Ross, and Paul Simon rolled into one.”