Life is good when you can get the Beastie Boys to be your backup band.

Such is the envious position that Elvis Costello occupied Sunday night when he joined the Boys for a performance on "Saturday Night Live"'s 25th anniversary show.

Costello and the Beasties playfully recreated the now classic "SNL" moment in 1977 when Costello brought his performance of "Less Than Zero" to a grinding halt after only a few bars and re-launched into the music biz-bashing nugget rant "Radio, Radio." This time out, the Beasties launched into "Sabotage," only to have Costello rush the stage, bump Ad-Rock over to keyboards, and take the mic for a rendition of "Radio, Radio.

While the shtick appeared to be in keeping with the nostalgic trip of the show, the Beasties claim it was their idea to salute Costello all along.

[article id="1439096"]"'Why don't we just go up there and play an Elvis Costello song?'"[/article] Beastie Adam Yauch told MTV News of the band's initial

reaction to the "SNL" invite. While rehearsing on Saturday for Sunday night's show, Yauch went on to explain, [article id="1439096"]"We were like 'Who's gonna sing it?' We started thinking if we do that, then we're just gonna sound stupid. So then we were like, 'We should try to get Elvis to sing it, see if he wants to do it.'"[/article]

Obviously Costello was down with the idea, and the fact that he's a bit of a Beasties' fan didn't hurt. [article id="1439096"]"The real album that I like is 'Paul's Boutique,'"[/article] Costello told MTV News. [article id="1439096"]"I like the early stuff. I like the early funky stuff. I like the new record as well." [RealVideo][/article]

For Costello, the one-off serves as a high profile warm-up for a U.S. tour that gets rolling on Thursday in San Francisco. Here's where to catch him:

• 9/30 - San Francisco, CA @ Warfield
• 10/1 - Oakland, CA @ Paramount Theatre
• 10/2 - Los Angeles,

CA @ Wiltern Theatre