Thoughts and clarifications on Seth's review of the Beastie Boys, 9/17

Three Jews (Rachel, my brother Seth, and myself) set out on a Friday night to see three other Jews put on a simple hip-hop concert in SF. They were never seen again. They left only this review of the concert, and the following meta-review for uber-nerds. Original text appears in red.

"Last night I went to the best fucking concert of my life!"

Okay, I know he's a little over-exuberant. He says every concert is the best he's ever seen. Give him a break, he's like 14.

"Okay, we got there probably 2 hours before the opening act."

It was more like 45 minutes. Once again, 14 years old. Anything longer than the average Soul Calibre II fight feels like forever to the modern teen.

"I mean, YOU get here 2 HOURS EARLY and lets see how YOU TAKE IT when you get JERKS blockin’ YOUR VIEW! So, I went down there."

I totally sicced him on that woman. I figured big fat nerdy bearded guy gets no sympathy, while cute-as-a-bug long-haired boy gets mucho. Shows what keen insight I have into the mind of the terminally lame...

"As kind as possible I said “Excuse me, we’ve been sitting down hours before the show, and you’re blocking our view. I was wondering if you could move over a little.” And man, she was being a BITCH! She was snappin’ at me, saying “I can’t, if I move there I may block someone...” HELLO?! I ASK FOR HER TO MOVE IN FRONT OF THE AISLE!!!"

All true. He asked her to move all of about six feet.

"They weren’t handicapped at all! Maybe in the head! They must have been buddies with the security guard cuz all the high-fives he gave them, but who cares."

There was obviously some kinda shenanigans going on. These people had no problem going down to the bar for beers, and yukked it up with the guards. Big one-finger salute to those guards.

"The opening acts were good. First, they had a guy with about 20 dogs. He had them do all these great tricks. The even tightrope walked and shit! It was cool!"

I don't care if you lost both parents in a car accident on the way to this show - you would've been smiling after seeing those dogs.

"Then the second act was some rapper guy."

Talib Kweli, straight outta Brooklyn.

"My bro told me that he was on Chapelle Show and Dave Chapelle credited him by being his 'best performer on the show.' He was pretty good."

He was okay. His songs were good, but his performance was straight out of the Hip-Hop Performance for Dummies manual. "Say 'hey'! Say 'ho'! Now scream!" I mean, c'mon, that was tired when Run-DMC would do it 20 years ago. He yelled at us to "make some noise" (or possibly "noize") so I started making bird calls. Hey, he didn't specify...

"Soon enough, the lights dimmed! And on the giant screen was MMM walking into the theatre and through the crowd. He made his way on stage and did a huge turntable solo, if you will."

I'm a little mystified by the "if you will". I'd say "turntable solo" is a perfectly according-to-Oxford description of what Mixmaster Mike did. I'll contact the OED people just to make sure.

"At first, MCA was messing up the lyrics, but they came back, strong!"

I'm almost certain it was Mike D who was messing it up. Seth might be confused by the fact that MCA looks and sounds increasingly like a grizzled Korean War vet.

"They had an awesome line up! They played shit like Triple Trouble, Root Down, Sure Shot, So What'cha Want, Intergalactic, and Paul Revere! Pretty sweet, huh?! Although my bro realized they didn’t play Hey Ladies! They did play Paul Revere!!!"

True, I was hoping to see what Mixmaster Mike would have done with the Wall of Samples on "Hey Ladies", but the presence of "Paul Revere" more than made up for it.

"And no No Sleep Till Brooklyn or Fight For Your Right. But my bro said they’ve probably playing it too much! And I agree. But, it was cool anyways!!!!!"

Actually, what I said in a nutshell was: in the liner notes to The Sounds of Science, MCA said that "Fight for Your Right" was basically a joke that got out of hand. It was a goof on songs like "Smokin in the Boys Room" that Rick Rubin made into a hit record (much to their collective chagrin). They're just sort of embarrassed by that song. But they did play "Brass Monkey", so maybe Yauch is full of shit. Anyway, as Seth said, it was cool.

"At one point the Beasties came out in Bar Mitzvah-powder blue tuxedos-and play like swig/jazz songs."

I would say they were more like a funk/bossa nova fusion, but that could be my jazz-nerd father's DNA talking. To my way of thinking, swing requires a horn section and high tempos. And preferably Heather Graham in a skirt.

"It was great! At one point, they went through the crowd singing. It was awesome!"

The cool part about that was they did what amounted to an extended encore after the house lights came up. I'd always thought the rule was House Lights=End of Show, but the Beastie Boys obviously didn't come to town to follow no stinking rules.

"And to close the night they played Gratitude and the last song was dedicated to George Bush. Guess what it was . . . SABATOGE!!! Ha-ha!!! Man, what a time!"

I have to admit, while I'm hardly a Young Republican, a musician taking a potshot at Bush is about as adventurous as aerating your lawn. How about taking a bold stand against Libertarian Party presidential nominee Michael Badnarik's controversial stance against armed banditry, or the Peace and Freedom Party's nominee Leonard Peltier and his increasingly outlandish plot to escape from prison.

"Well, that was the end of the best concert of my life! My grade is A+++! It was so fucking good!"

Whoa there, Tonto. An A with three pluses? Have you ever given anything a B? It was great, but your scale is whacked. Me, I'm giving it three gold stars and a scratch-and-sniff sticker that smells like pizza.

"If they ever come around again, I’ll see you there!"

He may even ask you to move.