While hardly the end of civilization as we know it, the arrival of hip hop does represent the first serious attempt at a palace revolution in rock since the onset of punk in 1976.

Here then were the main protagonists, both from Rick Rubin's Def Jam label in New York: the over-hyped Beastie Boys and the bosses of the movement, Run DMC.

The three Beastie Boys came careening on, wheeling and slouching across the stage, to dispatch a raft of rallying calls in short order while two go-go dancers wiggled around in an elevated cage to the side.

Of all the assumptions that the insurgents have challenged, it is the business of the girls that has most highlighted the new generation gap that the Beasties are exploiting. Even (perhaps especially) the hippest members of the old guard have found that one difficult to swallow, while the group can't understand what the fuss is about.

Run DMC followed with a set of minimalist gravitas that cast the Beasties in the playful light that their name suggests. With gold chains like hawsers round their necks, Joseph Simmons (Run) and Daryl McDaniels (DMC) cussed and chanted across the sparce rhythm tracks generated by Jam Master Jay's decks, before being joined by the Beasties for a brisk finale of 'Walk This Way. '

The spirit of camaraderie and sense of occasion were of an order rarely to be witnessed these days.

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