On July 6th, Scott and I went to see Weird Al Yankovic in concert at the amphitheatre at the Toledo Zoo. It was worth the heat and the wait. When I got the tickets, I immediately called Scott and informed him we were going. He called me a geek. I quickly informed him that I wasn't a geek, that I was a nerd, there's a difference.
The concert didn't start until 45 minutes after it was scheduled to, but that gave us plenty of time to people watch. Scott turns to me and says, "These people make you look normal." There was a wide variety of individuals present - I felt like I had stepped back into Hosey and Houts Hall from my freshmen year of college.
He played a wide variety of his songs, mostly from the current album, Straight Outta of Lynnwood. He did play his parody of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" (You're Pitiful), which isn't on any albums. It was a thing of beauty. The ending for it, he appeared in a Spongebob Squarepants t-shirt, polka dot shorts and a pink tutu. The best part was his salute to Star Wars complete with Darth Vader and Storm Troopers. The Emperor was on keyboard for "The Saga Begins" (American Pie).
Even if you don't like Weird Al, you have to admire his stage presence and his theatricality in performance. Costume changes for the band came at key points in the show, which was multi-media - while they changed, "Al TV" episodes played. You can tell that he and his band have worked together for years - when a technical glitch appeared - only the trained eye could tell they had to cover.
There were a number of surprising revelations - there are Weird Al groupies, and they hung out in the parking lot after the show listening to the song he closed the show with "Albuquerque." Also, there were a large number of second generation nerds - the Weird Al fans and their kids...and the kids knew all of the words to all of the songs. I felt like I wasn't nerdy enough to be at the concert!
"White and Nerdy" from the Lynnwood album still makes me think of people I went to college with and lived in the honors college dorms. I must classify myself among the nerds - especially since while I'm writing this I'm listening to my Weird Al play list on my IPod.
1 comment:
No, actually there aren't any Weird Al groupies. We're tour chasers, we come in both genders and all ages, and besides going to as many concerts as we can afford, we do hang out afterwards in hopes that Al will come out to say hello to his fans and sign his name repeatedly on a staggeringly miscellaneous collection of objects. He does it often enough that quite a few of us have met him repeatedly. Al's a decent guy who's devoted to his family and who doesn't do groupies (in any sense of the word). But we're always glad to see him, and he seems glad to see the familiar faces. And since there's all this gladness going around, I'm glad you had fun at the concert too. :)
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