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It has been 6,167 days since the last full Beastie Boys concert which took place at the Bonnaroo Music Festival back on June 12, 2009 with ‘Sabotage’ as the final song performed. Not long after that concert, Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch was diagnosed with cancer and passed away in May, 2012.
Following Yauch’s passing, the members made the conscious decision to no longer perform/tour as the Beastie Boys. And that is 100% understandable and admirable. But when Beastie Boys founding member Mike D made a surprise appearance at the Ojai Valley Women’s Club to perform Beastie Boys songs with his two sons the crowd was ELECTRIC and the clips are reminiscent of a bygone era.
Mike D Performs Beastie Boys Songs In Ojai Valley With His Sons
Alt band Very Nice Person recently performed at the Ojai Valley Women’s Club on April 11th. The band is made up of Mike D’s (real name Michael Louis Diamond) two sons, Skyler and Davis Diamond. Prior to the performance, they announced on Instagram “show this Thursday!!!!! @brothers_marshall and show on Saturday @ojaivalleymusic gonna be Sickk both @secretcircuit and another secret special guest!”
There’s a LOT of emphasis there on ‘secret special guest’ because bringing out their dad to perform ‘So What’cha Want’ from the album Check Your Head and ‘Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun’ from Paul’s Boutique. The latter is probably my second-favorite album of all time from any artist, only behind Ziggy Stardust. I remember like it was yesterday when my older brother gave me the CD and it opened up a whole new world of music to me, in particular the track ‘B‐Boy Bouillabaisse’ was a life-changer for me.
Clips from the surprise performance have since gone viral, including this clip posted by @WuTangIsForTheKids on X:
Amazing….Mike D doing "So What’cha Want" with his sons' band 🔥 pic.twitter.com/vfiwSy27mT https://t.co/zJIMo8KXLr
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) May 1, 2026
Elsewhere, it seems Consequence was first to pick up news of the surprise performance. They shared this Instagram gallery with a few separate clips of the performance. Scroll to the left for more:
There is no reason to suspect this is anything more than a one-off surprise performance from Mike D with his sons but how cool would it be if they did some sort of Summer mini-tour across the festival circuit and broke out Beastie Boys tracks from the vault??
Now, if you need something else to watch, here is a 29-minute ‘Fight For Your Right’ music video released on YouTube 15+ years ago. What a throwback!
Iconic stuff right there. They don’t make them like they used to.