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Gig Info:
Performance Date: 10 April 1985

Country: United States
City: Seattle, WA
Venue: Paramount Theatre

Other Bands/Artists at the Show:

  • Madonna

Notes:

Opening act for Madonna's The Virgin Tour
 
Setlist:
Not Available
Reviews:
BAM (Bay Area Music) (Volume 1, Number 9)
By Craig Rosen:

On a recent segment of MTV's music news, Beastie Boy King Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz) said every red-blooded American male would die to go on a date with Madonna. "I'm going on 40 of them, I'm bound to get something." Little did the Beastie Boys knows that they would nearly get themselves killed.

At Seattle's Paramount Theatre, the site of the Material Girl's first date on the Virgin Tour, unsuspecting Madonnabe's and their boyfriends were probably shocked by the bratty Beasties, a New York hardcore-punk band turned hard-core-rappers.

"Ad-Rock came out and said 'I'm the king of the Paramount. I own this place'" says Mike D (Michael Diamond).

Naturally what followed and continued through the Beasties' 30-minute set was shower of unprintable crowd responses to the contrary. "I decided today that I like it better when we get booed, because when we get off the stage all the girls act real sympathetic and try and convince us that we're really good", says 18-year-old Ad-Rock, the son of playwright Israel Horovitz.

"The young girls like us", says Mike D, 19, "And their boyfriends see that they like us, so they boo".

After yet another unprintable comment, this time from the third Beastie, rapper MCA (Adam Yauch, 20), Mike D says "That's really our purpose on the show, we're girl toys".

Welcome to the world of "Boys entering anarchistic states towards inner excellence", commonly known as the Beastie Boys, the band hand picked by the Boy Toy herself to open up her Virgin Tour. But when it's brought up that England's Gay-Lib disco dandies Bronksi Beat were originally slated to fill the bill, the Beasties quickly claim that Bronski was the choice of Madonna's management.

"She was happy they pulled out", says Mike D. "Anyway who do you think she'd rather be with, Bronski Beat of The Beastie Boys?". Mike D claims that Madonna, also known as the Beastie Boy Toy, actually wears the Beastie Boy T-Shirt the band gave her.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 11, 1985
By Gene Stout:

The show began with a 30-minute set by the Beasty Boys, an all-white New York rap group (complete with disc jockey) whose lead rapper got off to a bad start by declaring himself "King of the Paramount" and generally making the Pro-Madonna audience feel like a swarm of hillbillies.

It was a quirky, almost tongue-in-cheek act, and the crowd didn't seem to be in the mood for it. Each song was followed by boos and then more put-downs by the quartet of rappers. Shortly before leaving the stage, one of them facetiously said, "Me and the boys are gonna go backstage and tell Madonna what a great audience you are" wasn't a good beginning.

Seattle Times, April 11, 1985
By Patrick MacDonald:

(Madonna and the Beastie Boys last night, tomorrow and Saturday at the Paramount Theater. Sold out.)

The show was opened by an embarrassingly amateur quartet of white rappers from New York called the Beastie Boys which the audience understandably booed throughout their half-hour set.
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