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June 16, 2004

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Beastie Boys on Letterman ++

beastie boys on letterman

The Beastie Boys performed on Letterman last night, celebrating yesterday's release of their new album, To the 5 Boroughs.

Here is an MP3 of their performance. A lonely old man who cares very deeply for you made it. In 24 hours, we are removing it.*

And, we also present: many screenshots of the performance. If you squint, you might just see Amy in one of the street scenes. (The pics are a little fuzzy, due to a low Tivo setting.)

The performance was a bit unusual: as they performed, they came out of a subway station, walked down the block to Letterman's studio, emerged triumphantly on stage, and then towards the end of the song, marched over to Letterman's desk and finished up.

ps. if you link here, please link to this post, not the mp3 file. we're freecaching it, and that doesn't work if you link to the file. -ADM

It was exciting to see the Beastie Boys walking down 53rd Street while rapping to a frantic camera crew, though the performance felt weirdly disconnected. Their microphones were connected to speakers that were inside the studio, so all the people on the sidewalk could hear was some quietly murmured rhymes that seemed all out of proportion to the funky moves they were busting out. Note: you might also catch a glimpse of the significantly taller Emily in the screenshots, who was also watching as the Boys passed, though I spent so much time rewinding my tape this morning that I was late for work, and I didn't see us.

[sidebar: doesn't the cover art of To The 5 Boroughs look a lot like Wesley Willis's colored pen drawings of Chicago skyscrapers?]

The real disappointment of the standing-outside-the-Ed-Sullivan-Theater experience, however, was the overexposed Ben Stiller. He was the other guest on last night's show, and spent much more time outside the studio than the Beastie Boys did, doing some unfunny promotion for Dodge Ball, the movie America couldn't care less about. The quickly evaporating love that moviegoers feel for Ben Stiller could be the topic of an entire other post, but I don't think I have the will to write it. -Amy

Don't worry, Amy - our trusty friends at Television Without Pity feel the same way about Stiller, and offer their analysis here. - Emily

*possibly sooner, depending.

categories: Music
posted by adm at 3:01 AM | #