My kid works in a comic shop, and asked me to make them a playlist of music that would sell comics. I added lots of 90s and 00’s indie rock and hip hop, music to appeal to 40-ish dads. I’ve been told it works.
Bonus outcome: my kid became a Beastie Boys fan, specifically their best record, Check Your Head1.
Anyway, this reminded me of their concert film “Awesome I Fuckin’ Shot That”. It was shot at Madison Square Gardens in 2004 by 50 audience members. The band bought (and later returned, per the wiki) 50 8mm camcorders, and the film is almost all footage shot by audience members with them. It’s a great show, and there are some pretty great cameos in the audience (Ben Stiller and Donald Glover among them).
When it was released it was original, maybe groundbreaking. It was like a sophisticated bootleg – concert films then were either professionally shot and produced, or bad single camera bootlegs. Twenty years later, the only thing to distinguish it from any other concert video is the lack of vertical shots. It’s funny to read the reviews at the time complaining about the shooting quality. Per The Guardian, “The result is like watching an entire 90-minute film on your mobile phone”.
It’s tremendous2, even if sometimes director Adam Yauch (aka MCA, RIP) gets a little giddy with effects.
I put the thing on one weekend morning while I was making breakfast – the teenager was so riveted they were almost late for work. We’ve had lots of conversations about the band and the music, and now they’re nose deep in the book.
It’s not available anywhere, to rent or buy or borrow, but it appears here in full on the Internet Archive:
Further reading and watching
Beastie Boys Story on Apple TV
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1 Yes, Paul’s Boutique is more creative and influential and “could never be made today” (that’s probably not true), but Check Your Head is a better and more diverse record. Ill Communication is up there too. Hello Nasty is their worst. I don’t make the rules. back
2 The only criticism I have is that they made it ok for a whole generation of grown-ass men to dress like this. back
