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“We were just kids/freaking out,” sang the Beastie Boys member Mike D Thursday evening in front of around 150 people in the cash-only gay dive bar The Plaza Nightclub & Dance Hall in Los Angeles. The line came near the end of his first of four rare, intimate solo performances – his voice so soaked in reverb that the vocals were barely intelligible – and felt like a fitting commentary on the situation. Although Mike D played mostly new material from an upcoming album, he let the distinctive sound of his old band shine through as an atmosphere rather than an explicit homage.
As is well known, the Beastie Boys never disbanded. The trio, which became famous in the late 80s with rock-meets-rap hits like “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn” and later became one of the most influential bands in the world with sample-heavy albums like “Paul’s Boutique” and the kitsch collage classic “Hello Nasty”, simply stopped playing and recording – after the death of band member Adam “MCA” Yauch in 2012. Public appearances by the remaining members Mike D and Ad Rock have been extremely rare since then: a few festival DJ sets from Mike D in the late 2010s, a few more surprise appearances. This show was preceded by two unannounced guest appearances in recent weeks with his children’s band, Very Nice Person; The tickets for this evening went on sale the day before and, as expected, sold out immediately.
The surprisingly uncrowded little club – a place so far under the radar that even locals didn’t know it existed – wasn’t full of Hollywood celebrities or music industry insiders either. It was clear from the first minute: These were mostly impatiently waiting Gen-Xers who finally wanted to see one of their heroes again after years. Accompanied by 5D – a band of five musicians who are visibly thirty or more years younger than the 60-year-old headliner – and with the punk energy that once fueled his band’s breakthrough, Mike D started with the new track “What We Got”: weird, guitar-driven DJ groove, plus a tracksuit with his name across the left chest – the other band members in the same look, only with “5D” instead of his name.
New material, old energy
Mike D’s vocals were unfortunately filtered and distorted for nearly the entire set – evoking the feel of “Check Your Head” but frustrating those in the audience who would have wanted to hear whether D’s signature wordplay would stand the test of time. “Make It Stop,” the second song of the night, was a sprightly outing with lines like “take a name/take a number/fool yourself/fool each other” and a dizzying octave synth line that broke down into an 808 beat before a dense, Moog-soaked outro.
Then a revved-up, high-energy version of “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun” – one of only two Beastie Boys songs of the night – with a guitar solo that raises suspicions that the 5D guitarist may have taken lessons from Mike D’s buddy Tom Morello at some point.
“Crypto Anthem” followed with a neck-shaking guitar riff reminiscent of the Breeders’ “Cannonball,” along with coin toss samples a la Pink Floyd’s “Money.” Then “True Colors,” a catchy one-chord song, followed by “I Don’t Care,” a bouncy acoustic swamp slow jam. “Secrets” and “It’s Time” followed: the former lived from huge dynamic changes and the line “I say what you say”, the latter from a deep buzzing conga groove with strange rhythm shifts that were reminiscent of the strongest Beasties moments.
“Switch Up” was released as a single shortly before the show began and clearly stood out: The song was produced by Mike D’s sons and 5D members Skyler and Davis Diamond and sounds more like Prodigy-esque electro rock than a classic rap rock banger. Mike D heralded it as a “big moment” before diving into the track’s sophisticated rhythmic dance vibes – a description that’s apt: After all, there hasn’t been a new Beastie Boy song in over a decade, and this feels less like a return to form and more like a complete fresh approach.
Emotional finale with a Beasties classic
The show ended with “Thank You,” the aforementioned reverb-drenched ballad, followed by the finale in the form of the second Beasties song of the night: the classic “So What’cha Want,” with Mike D taking over the rhymes that once flowed back and forth between the band members. Instead of a melancholy affair, this was a passionate wake-up call – band members playing their instruments behind their heads, Mike D holding the microphone into the audience for a call-and-response.
It’s a shame that his old band ended so tragically, but it’s obviously cause for celebration that he’s back out there doing what he loves in a way that feels organically familial and charged with the same energy that has always made his audience, and that of the Beasties, feel like one big family. A family more than ready to reunite after so long.
On Sunday, Mike D performs at Sid the Cat Auditorium in Pasadena, followed by two shows at Xanadu Roller Arts in Brooklyn on May 22nd and 23rd.
