Qualcomm Hosts Dave Matthews Band for 25th Anniversary Festival

The tweets have been flying out of San Diego’s Sorrento Valley, where wireless technology giant Qualcomm is hosting the Dave Matthews band and multi-instrumentalist Tim Reynolds tonight as part of the company’s 25th anniversary festival. Thousands of Qualcomm employees and invited guests flocked to the party, which began at 5:30 p.m. at the company’s headquarters on Morehouse Drive, and officially ended at 10 p.m.

The company kept the appearance of the popular Dave Matthews band a closely guarded secret, although rumors of the show had been circulating on the bands’ fan site since Tuesday.

Qualcomm’s anniversary show included the opening of a new Qualcomm museum and a ceremony introducing one Qualcomm employee who started working for the company in each of the past 25 years, beginning with founding CEO Irwin Jacobs in 1985. The program then moved on to fireworks and a two-hour performance by the Dave Matthews Band and virtuso guitarist-pianist-drummer-violinist-keyboardist-bassist-harpist Tim Reynolds.

Among many who exulted about the experience was KPRI music blogger, longboard surfer, and self-described tech geek Chris Cantore, who tweeted, “trippy, dave matthews is playing / doing his jimi thing at the qualcomm 25th anniversary party … the q musta had a good year. #qc25” Tim McClain, the San Diego County director of communications and former editor of the San Diego Metropolitan business/lifestyle magazine, tweeted that the Qualcomm festival featured the “best portapotties ever. Full length mirrors and water and soap inside.” In another tweet, McClain noted, “Have not seen an iPhone among those raised to record Dave. Mathews.”

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.