This decade of Timeless Tickets will extend until 1989. But this year, 1987, feels like the spiritual pivot point.
Since the first installment in 1959, this series has had country stars. Pop stars. Folk balladeers. Punk rockers. But in 1987, the Quad-Cities finally got its mainstream taste of a genre that had been bubbling for a decade: hip-hop.
The Beastie Boys, a New York City rap-rock trio, came to the Quad-Cities to play a show at Col. Ballroom on March 14, 1987, just four months after the group released "Licensed to Ill," their debut album and the first hip-hop record to ever top the Billboard 200.
There was no way around it, rap was here, both nationally and locally.
Beasties blasted for violence
"Licensed To Ill," a chaotic hybrid of punk rock and hip-hop, spawned a series of massive mainstream hits.
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"(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)" peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 just a week before the group's show in Davenport. It was joined a week after the show by "Brass Monkey," a squeaky, often nonsensical rap track.
That was the brand for the Beastie Boys, ostensibly a group of hooligans willing to literally fight for their right to party.
Like Metallica and their thrash metal peers at the time, The Beastie Boys spawned a widespread debate about the merits of vulgarity and its impact on listeners. Most conversations centered around the belief that the songs' violent lyrics would inspire violence in its fans, especially teens.
They even faced criticism from fellow rap groups.
"We want to see people enjoy themselves, not kill each other," Darren Robinson of rap group Fat Boys told the Quad-City Times in October 1987. "The Beastie Boys are bad for music, particularly rap."
Beyond fan interaction, there was plenty to criticize with the Beastie Boys.
There was the working title of their debut album that included a homophobic slur. There were songs like "Girls" that glorified misogyny. And then there was the fact that the group was all-white in a historically Black genre.
"Russel Simmons, the kingpin of New York's rap scene and the group's manager, made sure the trio was accepted in the black community where rap originated, before they made a run at white audiences," read a UPI-syndicated story that ran in the Moline Dispatch ahead of the Beastie Boys' Davenport show.
There also was the unfiltered confidence that radiated from the three rappers.
"The album is No. 1, which is more important, because it means we make more money and are more important than, say, Bon Jovi," they said in an interview with local TV station WQAD, while in Davenport for the 1987 show.
Regardless of public concern, "Licensed To Ill" was released to critical acclaim. The group toured in late 1987 with fellow rap pioneers Run-DMC, who were a year removed from releasing a remix of "Walk This Way" with pop rockers Aerosmith.
'Tore the place down'
At the show in Davenport, which started at 8 p.m. on a Saturday, the Beastie Boys were flanked by opening group Fishbone, a ska-punk group four years away from releasing a Top 50 Billboard album.
Despite any concerns about violence, Steve Moritz, who was the assistant manager of the Col. Ballroom at the time, said the show went smoothly.
Moritz said he'd worked at plenty of hip-hop shows before, mostly on "teen nights" hosted by the Col for local break dancers and emcees. But he was caught off guard when he saw the Beastie Boys roll out of the tour bus and on to the stage.
He hadn't heard of them before the show.
"They walked down this stupid wooden ramp we had, jumped up on stage and just tore the place down," Moritz said. "That broadsided me, man."
'Truly excellent and truly offensive'
"Licensed to Ill" was by no means the start of hip-hop, but it certainly brought an explosion in the genre, especially into suburban households across the country that had previously resisted rap.
With this movement, a duality rose to the surface: music can be vulgar and offensive, yet still enjoyable.
"It would seem that sufficient time has passed for many people's disgust with the Beasties' antics to deepen into the sort of complicated pleasure that very little popular music yields these days," wrote columnist Ken Tucker in a Knight News Wire piece published in the Moline Dispatch in early 1987.
"The complications arise when you consider the fact that the Beastie Boys' music is both truly excellent and truly offensive."
Run-DMC's "Raising Hell" came out in May 1986, produced by a former New York pal of the Beastie Boys: Def Jam founder Rick Rubin. Rubin went on to produce hundreds of records, collaborating with rappers like Kanye West, Jay-Z and Eminem.
The Beastie Boys' run on top ebbed and flowed into the '90s, returning in a big way with the release of Grammy-nominated "Sabotage" in 1994.
The group had a major influence on many rap-rock groups, especially with the rise of nu-metal at the turn of the millennium. It's easy to trace a sonic line from the Beastie Boys to performers like Limp Bizkit, Rage Against The Machine and Sublime.
Rap as a genre continued to accelerate exponentially in the years after 1987. Rap groups like NWA, Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest released records to widespread acclaim.
In the Quad-Cities, rap shows became more and more common. The nineties saw the arrival of the Fresh Prince, Notorious B.I.G., Method Man, DMX and Jay-Z. The Beastie Boys came back, too, playing a show at Col. Ballroom once again in 1992.
You'll see more hip-hop in the Timeless Tickets space in the years to come.
This story is part of a series called "Timeless Tickets," where we're aiming to find the most notable concert in the Quad-Cities, every year from 1960 to today. Do you have a story or photo to share from an iconic local show? Send it to entertainment reporter Gannon Hanevold at ghanevold@qctimes.com.
To read more "Timeless Tickets" stories, click here.