Qué Onda, Yahoo!?

Jammin
Originally uploaded by Maximum Mitch.

I kid you not, there was a surprise concert for us, outside the offices last Friday night, by one of my favorite musicians, BECK!

Despite his casual demeanor, Beck always puts on an outstanding show, filled with musical improv, high energy, humor, dance, and theatrics. I have seen him perform several times over the years; once in Santa Monica, once in Silicon Valley, once in San Francisco, and more recently in Santa Cruz.

Beck is a hacker of music, and so he was just the right kind of surprise rock star to delight the hacker guests of Yahoo! As I watched the show, I hoped he would play my favorite tune, "Debra," which he skipped at the Santa Cruz show. Shortly after I told my coworker/friend KT this, he started singing, "I wanna step to you... with a fresh pack of gum..." and I screamed with excitement.

This year, his tour includes a troupe of puppeteers, mimicking the enthusiastic live band. On top of that, at this concert, he decided to improvise a mix of "Hell Yes" with beats from David Bowie's "Fame" and Prince's "Kiss," which then even segue-wayed into a brief cover of JT's awesome new song, "SexyBack."

And just when you thought the fun had to come to an end, he gave Yahoos the treat of a puppet-show movie that took place at the Yahoo campus. Plus he threw in a banjo sample and a rap number performed in bear costumes.

Here's a brief cut of the concert in case you missed it.

This reminds me of the day (some years ago) that my coworkers delivered me a huge basket full of Hello Kitty gifts as a thank you. At that moment, I thought, "Man, my ex-boyfriends never got me gifts that were this cool and thoughtful," and "Wow. I can never leave Yahoo!"