I got a free ticket to see "Weird Al" Yankovic in concert Tuesday night and thought it would be fun, even though I wasn't into him at all. The seats were great, maybe 30 feet from the stage, and he came out into the audience to sing. Between songs they played skits and interviews while the band put on different costumes.
By the middle of the show, I had tears coming out of my eyes from laughing so hard. Plus, the band is actually really, really talented. You should see them if you get the chance. They played for two hours, shot fake money and confetti in the air, and the teenagers behind me and the retiree beside me sang along to almost every song. I'm definately a fan now!
Originally posted by Spiraling_ShapeEveryone should see Al at least once in their lifetime. I saw him last year for the first time since '99, he's always incredible.
But you don't always need to see him twice in the same album/tour...cause it's the exact same show. Just an FYI...
Agreed. Great show. Even from tour to tour a lot of the stuff is the same. Starts out with "Fun Zone" (an instrumental song of off the UHF Soundtrack), the polka medley from the latest album will be performed (with speeded-up clips from the original artists music videos), he'll do a medley of some of his other songs (usually including one or two unreleased songs in it), they'll do "Yoda" along with the Yoda chant.
I don't know if the last time I saw him was part of this tour or not. Dexley's, do you remember if they did "I'm in Love (With the Skipper)" and a verse of "Headline News" (parody of the Crash Test Dummies "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm") about a celebrity during the medley? Those are two of the unreleased songs he did. The time before that, it was probably during the "Running With Scissors" tour, and he did unreleased parodies of "My Heart Will Go On" and "Thank U".
He did perform "I'm in love with the skipper" and the last song (after the very long "Albequerque) was "We all have cell phones, so c'mon, get real." This was inspired by an ALtv skit where he pretended to interview Michael Stipe.
Originally posted by Spiraling_ShapeEveryone should see Al at least once in their lifetime. I saw him last year for the first time since '99, he's always incredible.
But you don't always need to see him twice in the same album/tour...cause it's the exact same show. Just an FYI...
Agreed. Great show. Even from tour to tour a lot of the stuff is the same. Starts out with "Fun Zone" (an instrumental song of off the UHF Soundtrack), the polka medley from the latest album will be performed (with speeded-up clips from the original artists music videos), he'll do a medley of some of his other songs (usually including one or two unreleased songs in it), they'll do "Yoda" along with the Yoda chant.
I don't know if the last time I saw him was part of this tour or not. Dexley's, do you remember if they did "I'm in Love (With the Skipper)" and a verse of "Headline News" (parody of the Crash Test Dummies "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm") about a celebrity during the medley? Those are two of the unreleased songs he did. The time before that, it was probably during the "Running With Scissors" tour, and he did unreleased parodies of "My Heart Will Go On" and "Thank U".
The Crash Test Dummies parody was released, and had a video on MTV where he did the full parody of the video.
I had 3rd row seats to see Weird Al around the time of the Bad Hair Day tour. It was awesome. He did "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" and closed with "Yoda"...it was excellence.
A buddy of mine was able to score us front row for his Louisville, KY show on July 4th which was all kinds of AWESOME. My only "gripe" was that he didn't play more of his older songs, but that's really my fault for waiting so long to go see him live (or his for not having played in town for so long . . . but probably still more mine for not having travled to see him over the years).
Anyways, we hung out for an hour or so after the show and were able to get this (http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k168/DrewII/DrewAlandScott.jpg) [I'm in the Superman shirt for anyone who cares] along with a signed "dollar bill" they showered on us during the show as well as my buddy's DVD copy of "UHF"
Highly recommended!
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. P. G. Wodehouse (1881 - 1975), The Man Upstairs (1914)
I saw him in Saskatoon last year! He's great. And he was here in Regina last night, but I couldn't go. I did, however, see the X-Files movie, which I don't recommend, but whatever. Here's my review of last year's Al show:
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slcr #121: "weird al" yankovic (07/26/07)
I love Weird Al.
I tried not to, or at least I tried to stop. Little kids can love Weird Al and that's acceptable... well, somewhat. It's to be expected, at any rate. But you're supposed to grow out of it, and like I said, I tried. It was a lie, though. I easily abandoned Mad Magazine, but Weird Al? Couldn't do it.
I saw him in concert once before. This was on June 12, 1996 (thank YOU, tin box full of old tickets), which would have been right before I started reviewing concerts. The big list of reviews has kind of become the "official" list of artists that I've seen, and I like Weird Al enough that I'm glad that he'll finally get his place on that list.
I also like that certain people are left OFF that list. You know who I mean.
Anyway. Weird Al. Seen him before. Excited to see him again.
For my third straight concert, I managed to nab tickets in the second row. This was more exciting than getting second-row for Willie Nelson, but not quite up there with second-row for the White Stripes. Al has been here before and he'll probably come back. But exciting just the same. We were sitting two rows directly ahead of Laura, Brad, and Christine. Laura advised us to watch out for "Weird Al spit." We laughed it off. Little did we know...
Odd that Weird Al would be playing SaskPlace - the local hockey arena - while the White Stripes would opt for the much smaller Centennial Auditorium. I'm not sure how many tickets Al sold, but it wasn't sold out. Didn't look close, really. The arena was cut in half for concert bowl seating, and the upper level of seats was tarped off. I figure the remaining seats would hold somewhere around 4,000 people at the most, so maybe there were 3,000 there? No idea. The crowd was an interesting mix. There were lots of young boys, of course. The attendees ranged in age from 5 until about 30 or so. From there, you had a good ten or fifteen year jump to the dads who brought the kids. Appropriately, the crowd was both very white and very nerdy.
When I saw Al years ago, a comedian opened the show with a family-friendly stand-up act. There would be no opener tonight. I was a bit surprised, but in time I came to see that this was a wise idea. The show ran about two and a half hours as it was.
An instrumental tune played ("Fun Zone" - I know too much about nothing), followed by some channel flipping on the big screens. Various bits of wacky footage gave way to a montage of TV hosts - Carson, Leno, Conan, Letterman, Arsenio, and many more - announcing the arrival of "Weird Al" Yankovic. Or "Mr. Al Yankovic," if you're Jon Stewart. What a classy guy.
Al and his band took the stage and opened with his newest polka medley, synched up to clips of the original videos from the songs he was covering. Next up was Canadian Idiot, a parody of Green Day's American Idiot. I was looking forward to this one. "Eat their weight in Kraft macaroni and dream of driving a zamboni all over Saskatchewan," as performed IN Saskatchewan for the first time ever... at least by Al. I knew it would get a big cheer. It did. And I kind of expected something would happen when the bomb explodes at the end of the song - this was when we got shot at with streamers out of the cannons on stage. The streamers missed us - went right over our heads.
The next couple songs included It's All About The Pentiums, as well as some originals - I'll Sue Ya, Wanna B Ur Luvr and Close But No Cigar. These originals don't rank among my favourites, but they were more fun in concert. Especially Luvr, which saw Al wander through the crowd and sing to all the girls. "You're magically delicious, like a bowl of Lucky Charms / you'd look like Venus de Milo if I just cut off your arms."
Between songs, we were treated to clips of "interviews" that Al performed with various celebrities. Basically, he spliced himself into existing interview footage. It's the easiest way to ask Kevin Federline "So what's it like to have a closet full of wifebeaters... but no wife?" The videos were to entertain us during the many costume changes. He wore the fat suit for Fat (of course), a Puff Daddy suit for Pentiums, Star Wars garb for The Saga Begins and Yoda, and six shirts and a tutu for You're Pitiful. Before White and Nerdy, he - indeed - rolled in on a Segway. Weird Al has some impressive Segway skills.
So that we didn't get costume changes between EVERY song, there was a long medley in the middle of the show. This included snippets from old songs and new ones, originals and parodies. I was delighted that Headline News, his Crash Test Dummies parody, is not only still in the rotation, but there was even a new verse:
Once, there was this girl who Got herself a DUI and got sent off to prison And when she finally came back She spoke with Larry King on his talk show He couldn't quite explain why We should give a crap about her
Some poking around on YouTube has revealed that this wasn't the only new verse of the tour:
Once, there was this girl who Rode around in limousines and didn't wear her undies And when she finally cracked up She shaved all of the hair of of her head She couldn't quite explain it It had always just been there
There were a few new songs... sort of. A snippet of a parody of a T Pain song made its way into the medley. I don't know the original, but the new song was about being in love with the Skipper, as sung by Gilligan. Very disturbing - and undoctored - footage of Gilligan's Island aired behind him as he sang. And the first song after the encore was "We've All Got Cellphones, So Come On, Let's Get Real." As those were the only lyrics, I assume that is also the title. It was a continuation of a joke from one of the celebrity interviews - this time with Michael Stipe. You know how people used to hold up lighters at concerts and now they hold up cellphones? This song was MADE for that. I was sad I had left my phone in the car.
The last song was Albuquerque, which surprised me. I read an interview with Al where he said he couldn't perform the song in concert without wrecking his voice - he performed it one time (IN Albuquerque, of course), and was hoarse for three days. So it was pretty cool to hear this. And while we did miss the streamers earlier on, we got covered in confetti when the cannons fired at the end of the show. Earlier, during White and Nerdy, we were showered in fake hundred dollar bills with Al's face on them. And during Smells Like Nirvana, after Al gargled into the mic, he tossed his cup of water out over the crowd. We got hit GOOD. Laura even tried to warn us, but it was to no avail. Luckily, there was no actual Weird Al spit in there. Unless he backwashes. And I'm going to just assume that he doesn't.
Fun show. Long show, but it never felt long. When it was over, we were still up for some Al-stalking. I don't usually stick around to try and get autographs anymore, but I'd gladly make an exception for a guy I've liked for... jeez, nearly 25 years? Wow. I was afraid I'd be all star-struck and tongue-tied, but it didn't matter as he snuck out a different door. Oh well. There's always next time.