Weird Al Yankovik Concert

For those who may not know, Weird Al Yankovik is a parody song performer. He creates parody lyrics to popular songs as well as creates new songs of his own, all with a comedic slant. (If you've never heard any of his music, he has several free videos on his site, so you can get a taste of his music and showmanship!)

I've listened to his music for over twenty years. Never once did I ever think he either toured, or that he would do so in Dallas! (I've gotten to see so many people I never thought I ever would in the last couple of years, it's mind boggling.)

As most things tend to happen, where I am concerned, I only learned about the concert by accident. My daughter's fiance had been invited to go as part of a birthday party celebration and she happened to mention it offhand in a wistful tone. She, like my husband and I, really enjoy Weird Al's music. So I got to work! (Hubby has to coaxed to decide he wants to go out into the world.) And low and behold, Weird Al really was going to be in town and they still had tickets!

Originally, the venue was to be at the Myer's, an open air theater. The ticket website declared clearly that rain or shine, the show would occur, unless the weather was extreme. They suggested you check the weather before coming and bring raincoats or umbrellas if required. It being SUMMER in TEXAS, an open venue didn't sound great, even though it was at 8Pm, but this was Weird Al! We had to go!

For June 2007, Texas broke all sorts of records for rainfall. There were almost 20 straight days of not seeing signs of the sun. (Daystar? What's that?) Flash flooding, storms, we pretty much got it all in June. And I guess a lot of people weren't feeling too confident on July being any better as a week before the contest we got a notice of a venue change. Seems they tried to move it to McKinney first, but it clashed with something else going there that weekend, so instead we were moved to Garland, to a new student activities center - awesome for us, as it was closer, enclosed, and air conditioned!!!!

Being the paranoid and must be on time beings that my family and I are...we left to go grab something to eat in the car and make our way out to the show at 6pm, giving us a 2 hour window. When we got there about thirty to forty minutes later, the line was already forming and had a twist or two. Luckily we came prepared, so all three of us whipped out a book to read while we waited. The line got longer and longer.

At about 7:30PM I start wondering what is up as they've yet to let us go into the building. (Good thing it wasn't raining or we would have been soaked! It was hot, but thankfully not too hot.) They didn't actually open the doors till 8PM. Then you had to go through metal detectors, which made like a bottleneck in the hallway. Since all the seating #'s on the tickets got hosed, they pretty much sectioned off the areas by type of ticket, so first come first served within your area - we got way lucky as we were near the front of the line so seat choices weren't bad, unlike the fiance and his group! (Bwahahahaha)

Got some about halfway up and at the isle which ran down the center. Guy in front of me was tall, but not terribly so. (Hey, us short people have problems with tall peeps in front. :P) And with my binoculars handy, the seats were awesome!!!!

At 9Pm we finally got moving!

The stage held all the equipment for the band and also above it were three television screens. These came in way handy as they used them for all sorts of things, including to show AL TV to keep us occupied while they did costume changes.

We started out with one of the polka montages and it just got better from there. One song was like the video where you have someone with cards and the cards are the lyrics. Well, the guy with the cards was on the TV while Al sang the lines. The timing was amazing! There were pauses by the man on the video coinciding with a harmonica solo or two, also gestures and commentary. It was totally impressive! One little hiccup and it would have been totally off.

Got several of the Star Wars songs, for which all the crew changed for. So Al, the two guitarists, and the drummer all had Jedi Robes on and the pianist/organist had a purple cowled robe which was used to great effect as he played pieces of the Darth Vader theme then went into a quaint piano ditty. The two guitarists and Al also did a weird movement/sound routine that was bizarre yet super duper due to the timings involved!

The Al TV sequences were from all over the place and time, as you could tell by Al's different looks. Many were interviews with music people, changed so that it appeared Al was the one interviewing them, and hilarity ensued.

Several times, Weird Al dressed up as the original singers for the songs he was doing a parody on and the videos. And he looked just like them! AMAZING work!

'White & Nerdy' was accompanied by video with pics of the things he sang about. My husband was totally tickled when he saw the picture for Captain Kirk was of William Shatner as Denny Crane. (Love Boston Legal!)

The TV came into play again as they played the intro to "I'm FAT" as you got to see the confrontation in the subway and then the beginning of the dance sequence where Al starts to expand. Then he jumped on stage wearing the fat costume and gyrated all over the place!

One song about picking up women he actually went into the audience singing to females and a male or two. And his facial expressions were a total riot. A true showman!

People sang the songs they knew and danced in their seats (I know I did!:P), not that you could hear them as the volume was PUMPED UP. (Hubby said he was deaf for 2 days! Heh heh.)

Everyone clapped like mad at the end and they graced us with a twenty plus minute encore. One song was about cellphones, which tied into a joke he did on the AL TV sequences and then did the song 'Albuquerque' which had everyone doing the chorus.

The concert, despite changes and delays, was totally AWESOME!

If Weird Al does a concert anywhere near you, I would heartily recommend you go! You will have a BLAST.

Tags: Weird Al; Concerts; Garland