AmsterJam's brew not all smooth

BY IRA ROBBINS | Special to Newsday

August 21, 2006

LL Cool J at the 2nd annual Amsterjam seen at Randall's Island Saturday. (Newsday/Wayne Herrschaft)

Score one for diversity and musical tolerance. On Randalls Island on Saturday, a predominately white audience cheered on rappers and rockers alike as a half-dozen acts - black, white and Latino - put on a smoothly executed eight-hour show.

Now in its second year, AmsterJam has two aims: to promote onstage interaction, billed this year (using last year's buzzword) as mashups, and to promote Heineken's beer. Judging by the emptied $7 pint cups that littered the asphalt as the show wore on through an hour of light evening rain, the latter goal was achieved. But the musical matchups - raunchy rapper Busta Rhymes with the Latin funk band Yerba Buena, old school superstar LL Cool J with reggaetón sensation Tego Calderón, and Foo Fighters with Tom Petty - didn't amount to much.

In their own sets, LL was the far more appealing entertainer than Rhymes.

Alone onstage with his DJ, the Queens native never stopped moving or pulling fond memories out of his bag of hits. While he cut some songs short ("I Can't Live Without My Radio" was reduced to one verse) and added the obligatory hip-hop admonitions to throw hands in the air and scream, LL delivered "Rock the Bells," "Mama Said Knock You Out," "Doin It" and other hits, with bits of their videos as visual aids.

Rhymes, who worked in tandem with a second MC as well as a DJ, also put a lot of energy in, but got out less entertainment value. Where LL was the smooth seducer, Rhymes was rough and crude, highlighted by virtuoso speed rapping and marketing savvy (he and his crew sported T-shirts with the name of his current album, which he plugged repeatedly before leaving the stage) but little else.

Rhymes, aka Trevor Smith, was reportedly arrested for assault after the concert, and two of his crew were also taken into custody. See news for complete story.

Yerba Buena, which began the show at 3 p.m., was a fun, jolly blend of upbeat Latino and Caribbean melodies and rhythms. Calderón, who followed Rhymes, was better than that. With lyrics entirely in Spanish, he and his MC partner soloed, doubled and answered each in complex interplay. The beats - which meld salsa's light touch and dancing melodies with the bottom-heavy thud of Florida hip-hop - were diverse and engaging.

Foo Fighters, led by Dave Grohl (the Nirvana drummer who plays guitar and sings in his own band with the same bludgeoning abandon), were a noisy, obvious drag; the tuneless rock suggested Metallica minus the fascist undertow. "Learn to Fly," with Drew Hester sitting in on drums, was musically better than the rest, but inane lyrics like those in "Monkey Wrench," which had one of the set's few melodies, were typical.

Playing less than they did at Madison Square Garden in June, the top-billed Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were lean, muscular and more exciting. They cut out weaker songs and still managed to add two from the "Wildflowers" album, which improved the flow. Also, guitarist Mike Campbell was the only main-stage musician who could be said to be playing for himself, once the benchmark of great music but now a rarity in the formality of big-league rock.

Best of all, Stevie Nicks, a guest at Petty's shows this summer, stayed home. Instead, Grohl joined him for the day's only encore. As Campbell soloed furiously in "Running Down a Dream," Petty and Grohl stood face to face, strumming their Gibson Firebirds. If that's a "mashup," then drum solos (a feature of Foo Fighters' set) are symphonies, but the effort was indicative of the day's genial, cooperative spirit.

AMSTERJAM 2006. Rap, rock and reggaetón get along but don't quite mix. Seen on Randalls Island Saturday