Adam Yauch AKA MCA’s death in 2012 from cancer aged 47 effectively ended the stellar recording and performing career of hip-hop trio Beastie Boys. Since then, bandmates Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond have made few public appearances but the latter is now back in the fray. His first appearance on a British stage in almost 20 years is in, of all places, a bingo hall in the north east, where he surely becomes the first legendary rapper to yell: “Wassup, North Shields?!”
With turntables on stage, hip-hop clobber in the audience, a six-piece band in matching outfits and bingo tables at the back, this unlikely show feels simultaneously low-key and an event. Mike D is backed by 5D – who include his sons and are more than half his 60 years – whose slamming grooves and crunching guitars aren’t Beastie Boys reheated, but certainly have the same inimitable joie de vivre.
