08/25/07 Mitchell, SD Corn Palace Festival

[Mike F]

Are you guys talking about the sort-of heavy-set dude with the funky 80s-style hairdo? He was on stage a lot before the show in Kettering, Ohio, and he was our liaison when I was a Stormtrooper at Kings Island. He smokes a lot.

I do like his hair; I used to have a lot of it many years ago.

[DrSteggy]

I believe we are referring to the guy on the left here.

(at least, this is who I think is Joe--I didn't know his name, but he is filling the role that Yogi had earlier in the tour.)

Jackie

[stupidsurgeon27]

Yep, that is Joe.

[Mike F]

Yep, that's exactly who I was talking about.

[kaffy©]

Yep that sure is Joe D.

Brenda will be sad to hear this. LOL

Love his hair, its so "Elvi-esque"

hehe

[Gunzlingr]

This was my first time seeing Al in concert, and I thought it was a fantastic show!

My only beefs were it seemed excessively loud, which I attributed the small venue (I don't know where the poster got the idea it is the largest, both the Arena in Sioux Falls and the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City are considerably larger), and there was quite a bit of feed back in the first half of the show.

Started out the show with Polkarama, and finished with Fat (I figured it would be White and Nerdy). Encore was Albuquerque. Demographic consisted of kids to octagenarians (who were getting down during the performance!). Lasted about 2:15 or so with the encore. Crowd favorites seemed to be Pitiful, Amish Paradise, White and Nerdy, The Saga Begins and Yoda - and, of course, Albuquerque.

I would have loved to get an autograph, but my wife and I had to get home to pick up the kids from the sitter (we live a hundred miles from Mitchell).

I overheard an usher say there were 2200 in attendance, but I don't know for sure.

***Update***
Found this on the Mitchell Daily Republic Website:

For Tim Gukeisen, Saturday’s performance by Weird Al Yankovic was a birthday wish come true.

Gukeisen turned 26 on Friday. As a longtime fan, Saturday’s Corn Palace Festival show not only helped Gukeisen celebrate his birthday, but also gave him his first experience with live music and, more important, with Yankovic.

“I’ve been a fan since the very beginning, listening to cassette tapes at my mom and dad’s house,” he said. “It was extraordinary.”

More than 1,500 people flocked to the Corn Palace to watch the self-proclaimed king of parody display his brand of geek-fueled merriment. Performing parodies of songs made famous by artists ranging from the Backstreet Boys to Rage Against the Machine, Yankovic and his band wowed a multi-generational audience with a performance complete with video screens and multiple costume changes.

Between each song, video screens above the stage showed clips of “AL TV,” which often featured Yankovic performing “interviews” with stock footage of celebrities like R.E.M singer Michael Stipe, Beatle Paul McCartney and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.

The AL TV clips were among the many highlights for both Trevor Hornig,11, and Ethan Hillberg,12, of Brookings.

“It was awesome,” Hillberg said. “I thought the ‘Fat’ song was pretty funny, too.”

The song, a parody of Michael Jackson’s hit “Bad,” started with a video introduction. As it ended, Yankovic took the stage in a costume that added jowels and extra “weight” to the normally skinny artist.

Sheri Johnson of Rossault, came to Mitchell to visit family, but the chance to see Weird Al live was too much for her to pass up.

“I thought it was great,” she said. “It was neat to see all the things he came up with.”

Yankovic made the most of each song. During “You’re Pitiful,” a parody of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful,” Yankovic repeatedly removed layers of clothing, revealing shirts displaying sequins, an accordion, Sponge Bob Squarepants and one that poked fun at “Atlantic Records,” the company that refused to let Yankovic release the parody in 2006.

As the song closed, he removed his pants to reveal a tutu and heart-covered boxer shorts.

Near the end of their set, the band fired up a parody tribute to the Star Wars films and people took the stage in various costumes from the movies. Darth Vader, Boba Fett and four Stormtroopers maintained order as Yankovic and his band played “A Saga Begins,” a parody of Don McLean’s “American Pie,” and fan favorite “Yoda,” a parody of the Kinks’ “Lola.”

After leaving the stage, Yankovic and the band returned to perform “We All Have Cell Phones, So C’mon Let’s Get Real,” which prompted audience members to wave their cell phones in the air in approval. Yankovic ended his encore with his original song “Albequeque”, an 11-minute, 25-second rant detailing one person’s quest to escape the monotony of a small-town life of eating saurkraut every morning for breakfast.

Jeremy Borgan, 32, of Dimock, did not leave the show disappointed.

“It was a lot better show than I think people anticipated,” said Borgan. “He’s a great entertainer.”

http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/article ... 22284649d6

[Orthography Enthusiast]

FWIW, having been herded (I love this term OE) by Skip on RWS and Poodle Hat, I never really found him overtly strict or draconian....he would lay out the rules, the rules were ALWAYS the same venue to venue, and everything went smoothly. I never saw anyone actually get thrown to the angry mod, at any rate

Now...if your first exposure to the post show thing was this tour, then I can see how Skip could be thought of as strict.

I had a chance to see Al at a couple of passless sidewalk meet & greets in 2004, and I never had a problem with Skip either. But I've surfed across a few things like this experience, which gave rise to my comment. One thing I think we could safely say about Skip is that, unlike venue security, you could be pretty sure you weren't being lied to.

[weirdallie27]

Well, the tour book states Ed as being the Stage Manger for the Poodle Hat Spring tour, and I always remember him holding the harmonica, following Al in One More Minute, and doing the spotlight in Dog Eat Dog. However, the jacket for One More Minute had Skip's name on it...so I figured for sure he was on earlier tours.

I always recall Mongo following Al into the crowd for OMM during the Bad Hair Tour and Touring With Scissors.

~Allison

[DrSteggy]

I had a chance to see Al at a couple of passless sidewalk meet & greets in 2004, and I never had a problem with Skip either. But I've surfed across a few things like this experience, which gave rise to my comment. One thing I think we could safely say about Skip is that, unlike venue security, you could be pretty sure you weren't being lied to.

Well, that was pretty much Skip's speech. All that is missing is the thinng about if anyone breaks the rules, Al goes away and the offender is left to the masses for retribution. I never saw him actually drag Al away...and if it was a particularly small crowd you COULD get photos (we did at Easton in 2004...but there were like only a dozen people or so, I think they had squirreled the buses away better than usual.)

Jackie

[Alinite27]

Allie, now that you mentioned it and checking with the Live DVD, the guy for Running With Scissors was definitely not Skip. I just find it weird that the jacket had Skip wrote on it, so it would lead me to think it had had something to do with him.

Really the only bad experience I had with Skip during the Poodle Hat Tour was the York, PA show. He told Al to "Stop fooling around"..but, I'm sure it would definitely get hectic trying to keep everyone on schedule...so you can't fairly judge someone on one action.

Yeah, as mentioned that is Joe, Mike. He does smoke a lot, but he's really not the only one, and he does make up for it with the hair.....lol. Won't it be silly if all of this discussion goes down, and it turns out it was just a misunderstanding with Steve....