Weird Al

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Thad
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Weird Al

Postby Thad » Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:41 am



Weird Al is doing a pared-down tour next year, no costumes or videos, based around his original songs rather than his parodies.

Tour dates

I am excited. I've seen Al in concert enough times that I've lost count*, and he puts on a hell of a show, but like many Al fans, I prefer his originals to his parodies. (I have seen him do Dog Eat Dog, Dare to be Stupid, One More Minute, The Night Santa Went Crazy, and Albuquerque in previous live shows, so it's not as if his previous tours have been all-parody, but they've been mostly parodies.) This sounds like exactly the kind of Weird Al show I'd like to see.

And hey, if you're a Weird Al fan and haven't been reading Nathan Rabin's The Weird Accordion to Al, you should be. It's a song-by-song review of Al's entire discography; today he's up to Frank's 2000" TV -- which is exactly the sort of song I'd expect to hear on this new tour.

* it's at least six (3 at the State Fair, 2 at the Celebrity, 1 at the Dodge) but I think it's probably more.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Mongrel » Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:14 pm

Ooooh neat.

EDIT: And the Toronto venue is practically right down the street.
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Re: Weird Al

Postby Blossom » Wed Oct 18, 2017 5:01 pm

Apparently the only theater doing a show within four hours of me is one of those shitty places where you have to be a paid member to buy tickets, and those tickets usually end up being scalped. So that's fun.
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Re: Weird Al

Postby Niku » Wed Oct 18, 2017 5:57 pm

Yeah, it's happening like .. five minutes from my apartment. I'm hoping I can get tickets, since it's also a place that does pre-sell to loyalists.

(Also please read the Nathan Rabin entries. It makes me sad every time he talks about how they're the lowest trafficked posts he does.)
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Re: Weird Al

Postby Lottel » Thu Oct 19, 2017 12:54 pm

I want to get tickets in March for the town thirty minutes from me. Also want to pay the almost $300 for a meet and greet and photo op.

You get a free watch!
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Re: Weird Al

Postby Thad » Fri Oct 20, 2017 12:57 am

Niku wrote:(Also please read the Nathan Rabin entries. It makes me sad every time he talks about how they're the lowest trafficked posts he does.)


He did mention an uptick after Al recently linked it from his Twitter; hopefully some of the new readers stick around.

I also think that feature in particular is likely to have a long tail. I do notice that my comments on the Weird Accordion posts get upvoted weeks and sometimes months after they're written, so they're definitely attracting some latecomers.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Mongrel » Fri Oct 20, 2017 1:17 am

That's a good sign I suspect; it probably means he hasn't been superseded by some other authority on the subject, so eventually anyone reading up on this stuff will make their way to the series.
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Re: Weird Al

Postby Grath » Fri Oct 20, 2017 1:14 pm

Well, got tickets at the local music hall, definitely not as good as what I usually aim for because they do the same deal of early sales to members. But it's Weird Al.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Grath » Fri Mar 02, 2018 12:39 am

Seats were, indeed, not great. Ended up trading up two rows so someone's kids could all sit together. Show was awesome. Lots of deep cuts, songs he's never played in concert, and the set list was very different tonight compared to the first stop on the tour.

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Rico
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Re: Weird Al

Postby Rico » Fri Mar 02, 2018 3:30 am

Did he play his new single?

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Silversong » Fri Mar 02, 2018 9:55 am

Damn, never saw this back in October. Only commenting because he's coming _to my town_ in March?? Like three blocks from where I work. (Nobody comes here!?) There are VIP tickets left but I don't think I'm $279 hardcore.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Grath » Fri Mar 02, 2018 12:04 pm

Rico wrote:Did he play his new single?

He mentioned it, and also that it's so complicated it's impossible to play live.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Mongrel » Fri Mar 02, 2018 2:59 pm

Yeah, he's here this month too, but money's a little tight at the moment, so as much as we'd like to go it's probably off the table.
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Re: Weird Al

Postby Niku » Wed Apr 25, 2018 12:11 am

Our setlist tonight (only partially in order since it's from memory and I just got home, but the beginning and end are roughly correct):

Fun Zone (of course)
Nature Trail to Hell
I Remember Larry
Dare to be Stupid
The Night Santa Went Crazy
Melanie (Fun fact; the last time I saw Al in concert he began singing Melanie, but they screwed up halfway through, he botched the lyrics, and then just called a mulligan and said if anyone wanted to hear him finish it they could just catch him in the parking lot. This felt like the universe correcting itself).
Happy Birthday (HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY)
You Don't Love Me Anymore
Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung
That Boy Can Dance
I Was Only Kidding
Party at the Leper Colony (apparently people hate this song? and they are monsters?)
Velvet Elvis
Close but No Cigar
Truck Driving Song
Albequerque
Parody Medley
Crocodile Rock
The Saga Begins


I could barely have asked for anything more. The only songs on that entire list I'm not too big on are Close But No Cigar for a few reasons (associating it with its music video right now, for one) and I Was Only Kidding which is .. a little similar, honestly. But fuck, that opener set the mood immediately -- my wife isn't the deepest cut Al fan, but Nature Trail to Hell is her favorite song. My only disappointing omissions were something about twine and Minnesota and Santa going crazy instead of Ground Zero but finally peeking at the other set lists, I feel like the one we got was just about as personally tailored to my tastes as it could be. The energy in the crowd and on stage was great. Emo Phillips was fantastic. Al acknowledged that Truck Drivin' Song is a bit problematic. The band was basically showing off just how chameleonic they are throughout and especially at the end. A+++.
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Re: Weird Al

Postby Thad » Wed May 09, 2018 2:21 am

The setlist at the show I saw was almost entirely different from Niku's.

I will try to post more later, but I need to get to bed.

Suffice it to say, if this really is the only time Al ever does a tour like this, then I'm glad I got the chance to see it. But I hope it's not. It sure seems like, all self-deprecation aside, it's a wildly successful tour; he's selling out venues all over the place. I'd love for this to be the beginning of the next phase in Al's career.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Grath » Wed May 09, 2018 11:59 am

Thad wrote:Suffice it to say, if this really is the only time Al ever does a tour like this, then I'm glad I got the chance to see it. But I hope it's not. It sure seems like, all self-deprecation aside, it's a wildly successful tour; he's selling out venues all over the place. I'd love for this to be the beginning of the next phase in Al's career.

Another point in favor of this style of tour: It seems like he's having a lot more fun with this tour, being able to do whatever he wants rather than putting on an elaborate meticulously-synced-to-light-show-and-videos, exact-same-experience-every-stop-unless-something-breaks, 37-costume-changes performance.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Thad » Sat May 12, 2018 1:00 am

Right (well, aside from the meticulously-synced-to-light-show part; they're still doing that); Al told the Rolling Stone last year:

How did you get the idea for this tour?
It was sort of an epiphany near the very end of the last tour. I think I was in the middle of putting on my "Fat" suit for the thousandth time and getting ready to go back onstage. I was thinking, "Gosh, next time I go on tour I don't know if I want to be doing this. I think I need to take a break from all the theatrics. Wouldn't it be nice to just do a really scaled down, low-key, casual show for the hardcore fans and just go out and be musicians?"

I just thought, "Well, that's pretty unrealistic. I don't know if that would ever be able to happen in reality." But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, "Why not?" I'm at a point in my life and career where I can do whatever I feel like doing, regardless of whether it's commercial, or whether it's something people actually want to go see. I know this tour is going to be held in high regard by the hardcore fans, but more than anything, this is for me and the guys in the band because this is a tour that we're going to really enjoy doing.


So yeah, the main purpose was for the band to relax and not have to worry about keeping everything so tight and structured; he didn't have high hopes for commercial success. Course, the entire theme of the tour promotion has been self-deprecation about how nobody wants to see it.

But, again: it's selling out. If only the hardcore fans are attending these shows, then he's got enough hardcore fans to pack the venues he's choosing. I don't know how well this show would do at the Arizona State Fairgrounds (where I've seen him play...at least three times and I'm pretty sure more than that), but the Mesa Arts Center was packed, and the crowd was ecstatic.

Somebody's gone and posted the set list from the show I saw. The order isn't quite how I remember it, and one song is listed twice, but it seems pretty close to right to me.

I've got more to say, but I think I'll leave it there for now.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Grath » Sat May 12, 2018 9:53 pm

Thad wrote:Right (well, aside from the meticulously-synced-to-light-show part; they're still doing that);

I mean compared to the Mandatory World Tour, which I saw two stops of and it was the exact same show both times (except for a guest appearance by Lin-Manuel Miranda at the Radio City Music Hall one), with outright backing videos for many songs that he had to be perfectly synced with. Compared to those, having lights on the stage that are synced to the performance is nothing.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Thad » Sun May 13, 2018 1:34 am

I didn't catch the Mandatory Fun tour, but I've seen him quite a few times over the years; I know what you mean about backing videos (in his polka medleys, in particular, he'll usually have sped-up versions of the music videos from the songs he's parodying synced up with his singing them).

While his introductions and banter were a lot looser this time (and of course the set list varies considerably from one show to the next on this tour, and no two shows are the same), and he doesn't have to do the routine of heading offstage, changing while a video plays, and getting back on his mark in time to start the next song, I think that once the songs start, the band's timing is as precise as it's always been. I found myself noticing, through most of the songs, that they were laying down their parts just like on the album cuts. The obvious exception is the medley, but the medley was the part of the show that felt most like a traditional Weird Al concert, with lighting cues and choreography. (Not full on "Al jumps in the air and there's a sound effect when he lands" choreography, but taking a pose at the end of one song, lights go down, move into next position, lights go back up.)

The cues weren't as flashy as a typical Weird Al show, but I think they were just as minutely timed.

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Re: Weird Al

Postby Grath » Thu Jun 14, 2018 11:04 am


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