alikat
08-11-2007, 06:19 PM
OK, so this is my love letter for Hammerstein.
I'm just gonna cheese it up and speak from the heart. Cause I hafta.
I cannot express how much this show meant to me. As I've said on this board before, I'm lifelong fan & a native New Yorker, born & raised on the upper west in the 70's & 80's, currently living "abroad" in the midwest. Due to work, chaos and obligations, I thought there was no way I'd catch a single show on this tour.
But somehow, by divine intervention, crazy circumstances allowed me & a friend to pull off a 22-hour whirlwind trip home yesterday. And so I caught Hammerstein. With old friends from back home. On the rail. I have never been that close to the band before. Only big stadium shows.
No amount of video footage from this tour -- and I've watched a whole lot -- prepared me for how kick-ass this Gala Event show was. Fredo does things I wasn't even aware of. Money Mark exudes cool and rallies the crowd.
OK: MCA close-up in person? The man is radiant!! So serious and focused, then when he smiles it just lights up the room. And seeing as we were right in front of the huge woofers, with the wind of his bass lines blowing our hair back and shaking our bones, I swear it felt like he was frikkin God up there (And I wasn't even rolling!)
Loved Mike D's Remote Control opening, loved seeing all his hard core staples from CYH and IC, loved him on the drums. And of course, his banter alone does it for me. I think he was my best friend in another life.
Adrock. Superstar. In addition the crazy guitar skills and downstage jamming he threw at us, he really seemed to be in the same nostalgic, NYC-loving mood I was. His homage to summers in the city during Ricki's Theme brought me way back, and the shout-outs to his family just reminded me again how lucky I was to make it home for some brief moments with mine yesterday.
But beyond all that, I realized something brand new about the Beastie Boys last night: They are rock stars. They really can play. Their shit is tight and they can jam and they make you feel it. I hope the greatest-hits requesting idiots in the crowd don't get them down (and I hope they heard one hilarious dude near me yell Freebird).
Which brings me to another thing: The fans are so cool. We made friends with everyone around us. The men were total gentlemen. Even the quasi-moshing frat boys were too old & weak to pose a threat!
As fate dictates, I will sadly not be seeing a MMM show in 2007. But back at the Chicago airport this morning, free Rudy's hot dogs still sitting in my tummy, I decided two things. Well, three if you count that we're psyched as hell for the Riviera here in the Chi!
The other two were: (1) Thank God we caught a Gala Event show. Simply put, it felt like that joy you get watching a favorite crazy old friend get his shit together yet still be cool enough to smoke with you in his basement. And, (2) I had to do a 180 and hear License To Ill in the car right away. Y'know? Maybe to remind me of when I first met that old friend.
So cut to about 9:00am Central Time this morning. I've dropped off my travel buddy at his place and I'm zooming straight to work on three hours' sleep, Eastbound on Lake Street under the Green Line El tracks, Brass Monkey and a/c blaring, NYC suddenly miles away. That's when it finally happened: I lost my shit and began to sob. Yes, that's right. There I was in the car, 32 years old, crying to Brass frikkin Monkey.
I was exhausted and stressed. I wanted to be a city kid in NYC again, eating icies, using both knobs on the TV to tune into U68 for Till Tuesday and Grandmaster Flash, and playing Beastie Boys every night on my Walkman for an entire summer.
Well, life goes on and life is good. But so is memory lane sometimes, and for two hours of bliss last night, I had that all back. Summer in NYC, my friends next to me, my band in front of me, my town around me, and the music I love so much I can't ever get enough.
So there it is. Thank you.
* * *
And ps, who on this board was there stage left? I didn't know how to ask but we prolly talked.
I'm just gonna cheese it up and speak from the heart. Cause I hafta.
I cannot express how much this show meant to me. As I've said on this board before, I'm lifelong fan & a native New Yorker, born & raised on the upper west in the 70's & 80's, currently living "abroad" in the midwest. Due to work, chaos and obligations, I thought there was no way I'd catch a single show on this tour.
But somehow, by divine intervention, crazy circumstances allowed me & a friend to pull off a 22-hour whirlwind trip home yesterday. And so I caught Hammerstein. With old friends from back home. On the rail. I have never been that close to the band before. Only big stadium shows.
No amount of video footage from this tour -- and I've watched a whole lot -- prepared me for how kick-ass this Gala Event show was. Fredo does things I wasn't even aware of. Money Mark exudes cool and rallies the crowd.
OK: MCA close-up in person? The man is radiant!! So serious and focused, then when he smiles it just lights up the room. And seeing as we were right in front of the huge woofers, with the wind of his bass lines blowing our hair back and shaking our bones, I swear it felt like he was frikkin God up there (And I wasn't even rolling!)
Loved Mike D's Remote Control opening, loved seeing all his hard core staples from CYH and IC, loved him on the drums. And of course, his banter alone does it for me. I think he was my best friend in another life.
Adrock. Superstar. In addition the crazy guitar skills and downstage jamming he threw at us, he really seemed to be in the same nostalgic, NYC-loving mood I was. His homage to summers in the city during Ricki's Theme brought me way back, and the shout-outs to his family just reminded me again how lucky I was to make it home for some brief moments with mine yesterday.
But beyond all that, I realized something brand new about the Beastie Boys last night: They are rock stars. They really can play. Their shit is tight and they can jam and they make you feel it. I hope the greatest-hits requesting idiots in the crowd don't get them down (and I hope they heard one hilarious dude near me yell Freebird).
Which brings me to another thing: The fans are so cool. We made friends with everyone around us. The men were total gentlemen. Even the quasi-moshing frat boys were too old & weak to pose a threat!
As fate dictates, I will sadly not be seeing a MMM show in 2007. But back at the Chicago airport this morning, free Rudy's hot dogs still sitting in my tummy, I decided two things. Well, three if you count that we're psyched as hell for the Riviera here in the Chi!
The other two were: (1) Thank God we caught a Gala Event show. Simply put, it felt like that joy you get watching a favorite crazy old friend get his shit together yet still be cool enough to smoke with you in his basement. And, (2) I had to do a 180 and hear License To Ill in the car right away. Y'know? Maybe to remind me of when I first met that old friend.
So cut to about 9:00am Central Time this morning. I've dropped off my travel buddy at his place and I'm zooming straight to work on three hours' sleep, Eastbound on Lake Street under the Green Line El tracks, Brass Monkey and a/c blaring, NYC suddenly miles away. That's when it finally happened: I lost my shit and began to sob. Yes, that's right. There I was in the car, 32 years old, crying to Brass frikkin Monkey.
I was exhausted and stressed. I wanted to be a city kid in NYC again, eating icies, using both knobs on the TV to tune into U68 for Till Tuesday and Grandmaster Flash, and playing Beastie Boys every night on my Walkman for an entire summer.
Well, life goes on and life is good. But so is memory lane sometimes, and for two hours of bliss last night, I had that all back. Summer in NYC, my friends next to me, my band in front of me, my town around me, and the music I love so much I can't ever get enough.
So there it is. Thank you.
* * *
And ps, who on this board was there stage left? I didn't know how to ask but we prolly talked.