While waiting for Beck, the DJs running Bonnaroo’s radio station did something weird–they played a Radiohead song. “There There,” to be precise. Now, the DJ in me said this was a terrible mistake. You don’t play the headliner’s music right before the opening act. But seeing smiles wash over everyone around me as we all began to bob our heads to the opening drums was enough to belay any criticism. Plus, it was worth it to see members of the press walking into the photo pit mouth along with the lyrics.

Beck

If you’re ever curious what it’s like to have thousands of people sing along with every lyric of a nonsense song, ask Beck. He kicked off his set with “Devil’s Haircut,” and I’m fairly confident when I say that everyone within a two mile radius knew, and sang, every word to that song.

Now, when I tell you that Beck’s show was a spectacle, I mean that in the most impressive sense of the word. During his time on stage, he employed (in no order): people in bear costumes, boomboxes of comical scale, a percussion section of only silverware and dishes, and his own personal pump-up/cheerleader band member. Oh, and the puppets. I can’t leave out the puppets.

I’d heard tell that Beck was using puppets on this tour, but I had no idea what to expect. The way he pulled it off was that there were puppets on strings for every member of the band, and each puppet mimiced their corresponding member’s behavior exactly. Every time Beck changed guitars, the puppet “techs” changed their mini-frontman’s guitar. During the encore break, we were treated to a video of the puppets going around Bonnaroo, teasing, mimicing, and just generally poking fun at hippie culture. It concluded with the puppets singing a reworked version of Radiohead’s “Creep” (’I'm a creep..I’m a puppet’) and then coming out on to the stage to play along to the album version of “Loser.”

There are two other things I’d like to mention before I close the book on Beck. Three actually, but two are closely releted. First of all, I want my own pump-up/cheerleader guy. I never thought anyone could upstage Beck, but this guy was insane. He’s like if you took a Kids in the Hall sketch, brought it to life and shot Red Bull through his veins; he’s that energetic. The show would have been great without him, but with him it was close to flawless.

But as wonderful as that guy was, it’s clear that everything was carefully orchestrated by Beck. During his solo, acoustic portion of the show, he knew how to play the crowd like we were his personal six string. Covers of The Flaming Lips (”Do You Realize?”) and Radiohead (a tease of “Creep”) elicited some of the biggest crowd responses of the entire festival. Similarly, the eruption from the peanut gallery during Beck’s “plate percussion” meal (his band sat down to eat, but actually drummed on their glasses and table) proved that he’s still the master of his craft.

I don’t know how old Beck is. He’s somewhere between Neil Young and Smoosh, and that’s enough information for me. But when he came out onto the stage, I was struck by how mature he looked. I don’t know why, but I’ve always held onto the way he looked in the Mellow Gold CD insert; young and idealistic. So it was a bit of a shock for me to see that he’s not 24 any more. Still, he proved to me that day that he’s every bit as much of a legend as I’d made him out to be in my mind.