Review: Beastie Boys throw a party for fans

By CRAYTON HARRISON / The Dallas Morning News

The Beastie Boys merged with their audience in their Saturday show, caught up in the simple revelry of party-time hip-hop.

Scratchy-throated rapper Adam "MCA" Yauch constantly jumped offstage to get close to the crowd on the American Airlines Center floor. His squeaky-voiced bandmate, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, simply let the crowd perform his rhymes from time to time.

And, for the first of two encores, the trio, which also includes Michael "Mike D" Diamond, simply appeared up near the top of the stands among a sea of fans.Their show for the people ranged from the early, house-party sound of "Brass Monkey" to the punk-rock glee of "Sabotage," a song the Beasties dedicated unflatteringly to President Bush.

That joke, near the end of the show, was one of the few political moments. The Beasties have been increasingly known for their activism, but they kept the focus on the music Saturday.

The two-hour concert left little of the Beastie Boys' musical history untouched, though the set list dwelled more on hip-hop and less on the band's more experimental dalliances.

Appearing onstage in matching track suits, the trio tore through "Root Down" and "Sure Shot," two of its best odes to old-school hip-hop.

The Beasties' longtime DJ, Mix Master Mike, kept them on their toes. He mixed new beats into old songs, sampling current pop hits from Jay-Z and LL Cool J and forcing the emcees to make quick transitions.

None of the Beastie Boys is known individually as a hall-of-fame rapper, but they work well together, finishing each other's sentences and weaving between each other on stage.

The only lull in the performance came when the Beasties donned light blue tuxedos and appeared with their instruments on a set designed to look like a classy garden gazebo. They played three selections of jazz-funk, giving the audience a chance to rest up for the next round of fun.

Opening act Talib Kweli got his start in the artsy underground hip-hop scene, but he's inched closer to pop stardom and seemed comfortable in the airy arena space. His tenor seemed to gain strength as the crowd filled in, and his clever DJ kept plenty of 1980s dance beats on hand.

Beastie Boys turn back the clock
By Cary Darling
Star-Telegram Pop Culture Critic

The Beastie Boys haven't been boys for a long time, as any recent photo of these middle-aged guys can prove. And, with the musical experimentalism, Buddhism, and left-leaning politics, they've spent much of the last two decades speeding beyond the beer-swilling braggadocio of the mid-80s hit Fight for Your Right.

But the trio put the ''boys'' back in Beastie Boys Saturday at the American Airlines Center with a rambunctious, energetic, 95-minute performance that stripped the years away -- for the band and audience. After a short but solid display of turntable virtuosity by their DJ, Mixmaster Mike, the Boys bounded on stage in matching track outfits, looking as if the 18 years since the breakthrough Licensed to Ill never happened.

Though the most recent album, To the 5 Boroughs, is old-school hip-hop cool, some of the material didn't translate as well as it might have. With the exception of the title track, Open Letter to NYC, a toast to post 9-11 New York, it was almost as if the rap group, and certainly the excited audience, couldn't wait to go into rewind mode and haul out the hits. Similarly, the interest of some in the crowd seemed to fade when the Boys -- Ad Rock, MCA and Mike D -- took up instruments and, joined by two other players, swapped sportswear casual for wedding-singer formal and hip-hop for lounge-worthy soul-jazz.

But this enjoyable little detour led straight into the heart of the show: blasts from the past like So What'cha Want, Brass Monkey, Sabotage, and a totally rockin' Intergalactic. By then, a mosh pit -- a small cyclone of bodies, sweat, and punk-rock nostalgia -- had formed on the floor, underscoring the sense of déª* vu.

But the Boys avoided going totally retro. They didn't dust off beery anthems like Girls, No Sleep Till Brooklyn or Fight for Your Right, no doubt to the disappointment of some. And they kept the politicking to a minimum, restricting it to an appearance by video of comedian Will Ferrell as president Bush and a comment near the end of the night.

A constant with the Boys is their seeming reverence for hip-hop as a form. That could be gleaned Saturday in their choice of second-billed act. Rapper Talib Kweli may not be a household name but his socially aware style deserves a wider audience and, judging by the enthusiastic reception he received in his half-hour set Saturday, he just might get it.