Beastie Boys | Worcester Centrum | August 25, 1998
By PHOENIX STAFF | October 25, 2006
Keeping it surreal: The Beastie Boys at the Centrum, August 25, 1998. By Matt Ashare
The Beastie Boys in 1998 | The genius of the Beasties is their talent as tastemakers. They mixed rock and rap at just the right time to start their career, went crazy-ass digital with the Dust Brothers on Paul’s Boutique long before anyone had heard of Beck, and then had the prescience to pick up turntable genius Mix Master Mike just as a wave of old-school crate diggers were taking over the underground. And in 1998 at the Centrum, when there were plenty of other things to be paying attention to, they stunned a capacity crowd by unleashing Mix Master Mike and a couple of turntables on Worcester. Just Mike out there in the middle of the Centrum, spinning and scratching Rush into a rush of hip-hop energy. When the three Beasties finally hit the stage 45 minutes later, we’d all had a dizzying lesson in the turntable as a musical instrument. And it got better from there, as they grabbed the mics and, graying hair and all, rapped their way through a couple of tunes before grabbing their guitar, bass, and drums set-up to lay down their open-ended funk grooves. When was the last time a band has such a firm handle on pop culture? |
Were you there? Wish you were? Seen better? Tell us about it below.
Related:
Raining blood, Future perfect, Go, gadget, go!, More
- Raining blood
You have to hand it to the folks at Capcom: they simply don’t know how to mail it in.
- Future perfect
PlayStation 3 owners have had a rough go of it.
- Go, gadget, go!
We’re inching ever closer to the technological utopia so keenly envisioned on The Jetsons .
- EXTRAS! - side
- Giant's steps
Merce Cunningham's death on July 26 wasn't unexpected. He'd been in frail health since this past winter. He was in a wheelchair for his 90th-birthday celebration in April at Brooklyn Academy of Music. In June, the Cunningham Foundation announced plans for the future of the company and the repertory after his death.
- Call to the bullpen - side
- Go gadget go - side
- One woman, eight cameras - side
- Please release me
If you were looking for important, well-reported, or even marginally interesting music news, you probably wouldn’t be reading my column.
- Phones remix
Cell phone manufacturers are slowly coming around to the notion that a little bulk isn’t bad, especially if it means there’s fewer things in your pockets.
- Retirement party
By Christmas, the battle lines will have been drawn in the next-gen console wars.
- Less
Topics:
Live Reviews
, Entertainment, Science and Technology, Technology, More
, Entertainment, Science and Technology, Technology, Hip-Hop and Rap, Music, The Velvet Underground, Audio and Video Devices, Consumer Electronics, Electronics, Joe Strummer, Less