Mike D review – ex-Beastie Boy’s first UK gig in two decades, in a Tyneside bingo hall, is uproarious fun

King Street Social Club, North Shields
Teeing up a forthcoming solo album, the rapper doesn’t reheat his old Beastie Boys sound, instead throwing down everything from ballads to Kraftwerk references

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.