Weird Al is awesome

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:45 pm

So first a little background. I really didn't listen to music when I was a kid. When I was in the car my mom put on the oldies station (so I know the music of the 60's better than any other decade), and when I was at home I was watching sports, so the only way I ever knew what songs were popular was by what Weird Al chose to parody. Back when I was 11 or so Weird Al came to the San Mateo County Fair and I was dying to go, but there was an overnight at the summer camp that my mom made me go to even though there were other kids who went to the concert and came to the camp late. So for 12 years (or so) I've been bitter about it, but then they announced the lineup for the County Fair this year and the Friday night entertainment was none other than Weird Al Yankovic!

So I went with an old buddy of mine who rounded up some other old buddies of mine (it was like a 5th grade reunion at this thing). Unfortunately we got there late so we had to pay for the VIP seats instead of just taking the free ones so we could see, but I did get this utterly ridiculous VIP lanyard, plus I gotta tell ya, Al was fucking electric. First of all, the production of the show is off the charts, they have AlTV videos interspersed with all sorts of clips that somehow relate to the show, he changes costumes for every song, played some unreleased stuff, and was all in all just awesome. The only bummer was that he played Albuquerque as the encore, which I used to find funny when I was little but fell completely flat for me this time. But my brother got some awesome cell phone video during Amish Paradise (look for it on YouTube as soon as my brother can figure out how to get the video off of his phone), there were terrific audience singalongs during The Saga Begins and Yoda, and the energy in the crowd was as good as you can expect for a county fair where half the people in the crowd probably hadn't heard of him. Anyway, whether you're a fan or not, if Weird Al is in your town go see him.

Twins · Post by **Twins** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 3:05 pm

I've seen him twice, and he is definitely not a disappointment. I really hope he swings up to Minny again, as I'd love to see how he does "White and Nerdy" live.

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:01 pm

He was rolling on a Segway for the first half of the song, it was terrific.

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 8:54 pm

White and Nerdy is fantastic but my favorite recent song has to be "Ode to a Superhero". There's a great video for it on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV-L14ReUsE)
How many musicians have a career as long and successful as his?