Def Jam Dropped The Beastie Boys Because They Started A Riot In Liverpool
As a young act supporting their debut album Licensed To Ill, the Beastie Boys gained a reputation that had parents everywhere fearing for their children’s well-being when the Beasties rolled into town. Their show was full of frat-boy humor and included a giant inflatable phallus, and they were known to trash a hotel room — but they weren’t really dangerous by rock ‘n roll standards. That is, until the final date of the tour, which was a show in Liverpool, England. The dynamic between the crowd and the rappers was confrontational from the start. The Beasties performed for just 12 minutes. Things turned ugly, and Ad Rock started lobbing cans of beer into the audience. As a riot broke out, the crowd was dispersed with tear gas. Unfortunately, one of the beer cans that was either thrown or deflected (using a baseball bat) by Ad Rock hit a female audience member in the face.