{"id":501612,"date":"2026-06-16T00:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T00:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/501612\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T00:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T00:49:10","slug":"no-sleep-til-wicklow-mike-d-brings-a-note-of-mayhem-to-a-laid-back-beyond-the-pale-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/501612\/","title":{"rendered":"No sleep \u2019til Wicklow: Mike D brings a note of mayhem to a laid-back Beyond the Pale \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike DMain stage, Beyond the Pale\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no sleep \u2019til Wicklow for the former Beastie Boy Mike D, who arrives at the Beyond the Pale festival<\/a>, in Glendalough, 14 years after the raucous rap-rock trio came to an end with the death of Adam Yauc<\/a>h, aka Mike D\u2019s partner in rhyme, MCA.<\/p>\n

Mike D and the third Beastie Boy, Adam \u201cAd-Rock\u201d Horovitz, have vowed never to perform as the Beastie Boys without Yauch, although Mike D (real name Michael Diamond) does acknowledge his band\u2019s legacy by kicking off this enjoyably frantic 60-minute set in a crammed Selective Memory tent on Sunday with Hello Brooklyn, from Paul\u2019s Boutique, the Beasties\u2019 seminal 1989 LP.<\/p>\n

You can only admire Mike D\u2019s chutzpah. Nineteen years since the Beastie Boys last played Ireland, he\u2019s back on the road promoting a forthcoming solo album on which he takes to the mic on his own \u2013 a big switch-up from the Beasties, which was all about the interplay between the three rappers and their boisterous chemistry.<\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t flying entirely solo. He has brought along a band, 5D, which includes his two sons and which conjures a guttural groove as the 60-year-old frontman throws himself around the stage like your dad cutting loose when the wedding DJ plays Nirvana. <\/p>\n

\"BeyondBeyond the Pale: Mike D in the crammed Selective Memory tent on Sunday. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

Mike D brings a note of mayhem to a laid-back afternoon in Glendalough. Earlier on the 75-year-old Jamaican reggae great Horace Andy delivers a balmy set, having flown straight from Portugal, where he was on stage with Massive Attack until 2am. He is followed by the effervescent Galway indie group NewDad<\/a>, who light up the evening with a blitzing cover of Yeah Yeah Yeahs\u2019 Heads Will Roll.<\/p>\n

Back at the Selective Memory tent, Mike D\u2019s Glendalough performance is part of a soft launch for that forthcoming solo album, Thank You. Judging by the material debuted here, the record will bring an autumnal spin to the Beastie Boys\u2019 kick-the-door-down hip-hop. <\/p>\n

He seems to have created, by accident, a new genre of mildly unhinged middle-aged synth rap, pogoing like a lunatic over a drum\u2019n\u2019bass breakdown on the single Switch Up and rhyming over blitzing synths on Crypto.<\/p>\n

There is banter to go with the beats. One song is introduced jokingly \u2013 one assumes it\u2019s a joke \u2013 with a sample of RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s old \u201cJooooe Duffy\u201d<\/a> Liveline ident. <\/p>\n

\"BeyondBeyond the Pale: Mike D in the crammed Selective Memory tent on Sunday. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

Later he brings up a big sporting event over the weekend at which Taylor Swift<\/a> was spotted in the crowd. No, not Louth v Armagh but one of the games in the NBA Finals, as ultimately won<\/a> by the New York Knicks. A request for someone in the audience to throw him a Knicks jersey is partially successful when a baseball hat is chucked on to the stage. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0From the archive: Beastie Boys \u2013 \u2018We were the first wave of crazy\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But along with the joking there is seriousness, such as on the track Thank You, where he and his band look back wistfully at Mike D\u2019s years as a young man trying to make it in the music business. \u201cWe were just kids… trying it out,\u201d Mike D croons.<\/p>\n

His singing voice is tender and vulnerable \u2013 the very opposite of his rapping style \u2013 while the acoustic soundscape conjured by his group has a teary intensity. What\u2019s that noise? It\u2019s the Weepy Boys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike DMain stage, Beyond the Pale\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 There\u2019s no sleep \u2019til Wicklow for the former Beastie Boy Mike D,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[122707,93,61,60,159874,6543],"class_list":["post-501612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-beyond-the-pale","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-newdad","tag-taylor-swift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}