It amused the Beastie Boys to no end to find themselves playing in a Florida swamp. They couldn't stop talking, or rapping, about "the 'Glades" on Friday night at Big Cypress. There was even a call for "every alligator, every horse ... to put a finger in the air and scream."

The Beasties, in their Langerado debut, drew a big crowd to the main stage and earned a mostly enthusastic response. Concertgoers at the back of the scrum were more curious than invested; the screams came from closer in to the platform and its gigantic companion video screen.

The New York trio, joined by DJ Mixmaster Mike and keyboardist Money Mark, got off to a balky start, with the P.A. clipping at first, before they locked down and played to the occasion. The 90-minute set was a mash-up of hits, b-sides and - because Langerado made its name as a jam-band festival - some longform, funky suites. Money Mark doodled like Lalo Schifrin circa '75 on electric piano, and later there was a spacey instrumental anchored by what sounded like the low vibration of a didgeridoo.

Along with some of their signatures - rhyme-passing, three-way raps including Body Movin', Super Disco Breakin' and Intergalactic, the Beastie Boys played what might have been one of their early, pre-rap punk songs. They finished with a Beastie favorite: Sabotage, its choir of howls and fuzzed-out bass groove coming a little more naturally, and easily, to them than the mellow instrumentals.

Still, there amongst the 'gators and the neo-hippie-rave-kid glow sticks, the Beastie Boys made sense. Langerado's outlook is expansive enough to welcome just about any band short of GWAR.