Well, last night was the "Weird Al" Yankovic concert at the Westbury Music fair. It was great, as I suspected. The seats were very good (Section A, Row L, I was seat 22, right on the aisle. If anyone here thinks they were sitting by me say "Hey!"
). There really weren't any bad seats in the arena anyway, but we were quite close. He did a lot of songs off of <i>Poodle Hat</i>, but also mixed in a lot of older, and more obscure stuff too. He did <i>Dog Eat Dog</i> in the huge, white Talking Heads suit. That was probably one of the high points for me. I LOVE that song, and being that it's so old, and that it's an original, buried on his lowest selling album, I didn't think I'd ever see that in concert. I loved the parody medley, and I was kind of astounded that he ran off stage, got on the <i>Eat It</i> jacket and ran back on stage all while the intro bells for that song were playing. I also loved hearing <i>Melanie</i> and <i>Theme From Rocky XIII</i> in the medley. Plus, during <i>One More Minute</i> he was literally 30 feet away from me (I got the aisle seat!) when he sang the part about slamming his fingers in a door "again, and again, and again". I gave him the "RAWK" sign with my hand. m/ The preformances were all great too. Al's voice never gave out and he was able to pretty much maintain some really complicated lyrics throughout the night. The band itself was amazing too. They all sound almost exactly as they do on the albums, except when they choose to change things up. It was perfect.
All the video footage was really hilarious, and helped to keep the audience going during the relatively short costume changes. Seeing the clip of Al frozen in the cryo-tube on <i>Futurama</i> and his cameo on <i>The Simpsons</i> made me quite happy.
Of course, the other high point was meeting the man himself.
I'm not ashamed to say that "Weird Al" is one of the few celebrities that I idolize in a way. I'm not above saying that at all. He's right at the top of the list for me. Ever since I first bought <i>Bad Hair Day</i> back in 1996 I have wanted to see him live, and even try to meet him. Last night I got to do both. I just walked up to him when it was my turn on the signing line and said "Hi!". It was as short as that, but cool nonetheless. I wanted to say that his show was great, or "it rawked!", or something, but I thought I would sound dumb saying it. He autographed a <i>Poodle Hat</i> postcard for me. I have to make sure I not to lose it. I wanted a poster for him to sign, but you couldn't by them separately, and I didn't wanna spend $25.00 for a shirt. Next time, I'm bringing a camera though. In need to get a picture of myself with him. He seemed like a really personable guy. I noticed that he actually talks in the exact same voice he uses on TV and albums. I guess I assumed he'd sound different in real life, I think it's cooler that he actually sounds that way though.
