08/13/10 Costa Mesa, CA Pacific Amphitheater

[Orthography Enthusiast]

What, do you have something against deep fried White Castle burgers?

Or was it the frog legs?

[Alinite27]

Yeah, I forgot to put that bacon shirt in my review...I'm guessing it was new just due to the fair...The part in Smells Like Nirvana is always "oh well, whatever, nevermind". Nothing new there. Wish I could have seen more of you all last night...but I was wore out. Just wanted to get to the show and get out...It was cool to meet you too, Jon...

This was a fun show because it was the first time I got to wear my Lakers' Yankovic jersey, pretty much in LA! It got a better reaction from people than when I wore it at New Bedford, MA.

[Big Spoon]

WOW, the concert was amazing! The best Al show I've seen in a while. Meli and I left for the fair early, expecting to be stuck in traffic for a few hours, but to our surprise there really wasn't that much, so ended up arriving at about 3. We hung out at the fair for a while, saw Al's Brain, and killed a bunch of time waiting for the show. When we got into the amphitheater, I bought myself a Craigslist shirt. Inside, we saw everybody; Stephen, Jon, Amerah, Kristine, Tony, Marissa, Ludo, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. Then we went to our seats and waited for the show to start.

And man, was it a good show. As others have said, the rotating songs were You Make Me and Good Old Days, both of which sounded great live. I thought the setlist was great this tour, however the only thing I would have changed is making the group of pre-costume change songs a little longer. Three just felt like a bit too few for me. But what the hell, doesn't really make a difference.

The videos this tour were great. I LOVED seeing "YOU ARE TEARING ME APARHT, LISA!" from The Room in the opening clips. I had already seen most of what was played, but thought that Al was smart in selecting which ones to use. I was also happy to see Al include the reference from 30 Rock and The Office.

After the show, Meli and I headed backstage. It was pretty crowded, so we just hung out for a bit. Then Jon, Amerah, and Kristine showed up, so we talked to them for a bit about the show. Then we got to approach and meet up with Al. Jon talked to him for a bit, and introduced him to Amerah (who he said he remembered from the AlFest DVD). Then when I got up to say hi he remembered me and asked how I was doing. I told him I was doing well and mentioned the Skipper Dan Movie trailer that I made in school and he asked me how he could see it. I told him I'd tweet him a link when I got home. Meli took my picture with him, I took one of her with him, and we headed home.

I had an amazing day. Can't wait for the next concert.

[Orthography Enthusiast]

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentalit ... the-pacif/

Not the best review, but it must be like bamboo splinters under the fingernails to a staffer for the oc weekly to say anything positive about Al at all.

[Kristine]

I don't have a lot of time today to write a proper review, but I will say that I had a lot of fun, and it was great seeing everyone again! It was like a mini AlFest reunion!! I was sitting in the pit 5th row center, not near anyone I knew, but I could see plenty around me! I waved to some people, then sat down and waited for the concert to begin. One group I spotted pretty much right off the bat aren't WOWAY members at all. About 10 rows behind me, just house right of center, were 5 faces I recognized from the San Diego Fair show I went to with Aron and my sister. It was Aunt Dot and company! I remember them well since, if you go re-read my review, we were stuck outside the gates with them for quite some time, and chatted with them quite a bit. I didn't see any other family/friend types near them, though.

For once in my life, I managed to stay spoiler-free for Polkaface. I loved it!! I knew what songs were in it, but I refused to watch any YouTube clips. I don't think it's a better polka than Polkarama, but I still liked it. I think my general age group would appreciate it the most, as I suspect happens for most polkas. I forgot that Need You Now was in there, but I was so happy to hear it- I sang that song in The Lounge Lizards, and it reminded me of my Lizard buddies.

I was sitting next to an Al concert virgin, so it was quite entertaining hearing his reactions to everything for the first time. I was taking pictures, so when it came time for the SLN water cup, I hugged my knees to protect my equipment. He laughed after that, saying "I guess you really have done this before". I was glad I covered everything well, and not just kinda covered it, because my back got pretty soaked.

Anyways, after the show, we took a few group photos, hung out for awhile, and our little group ended up being pretty much the last ones to leave. I got to tell Al how much I love Skipper Dan, especially since my friend who actually introduced me to Al's music years ago IS a skipper! I also mentioned that Em freaked out when I showed her the video when it first came out. She was all, "OMG, it's my life... in an Al song!"

Fun show!!

[The Doctor]

I believe there were 6 stormtroopers, the R2D2 robot, and Darth Vader on stage during The Saga Begins.
Really, 6 stormtroopers is more than enough to fill the stage and get the point across.

The new WBUL outfit is pretty cool.

Craigslist is awesome to see performed live, Al transforms into a different person for that, and manipulates the microphone/stand a lot.

I was surprised that the concert started at 8pm and went on for two and a half hours. I think most Al-concerts I've been to started at 7.
My dad came with me to the concert, and he had said before that he wanted to meet Al after the show, but by the time the show was over, it being so late (10:30), and we were tired and hungry. I got to see a few people and gave out a ton of hugs.
And like I said, it being so late, I decided it wasn't worth fighting the crowd on the slim possibility of being able to meet up with Al after the show.

One of the roads was closed off and we ended up off course, but we ended up stopping at a Denny's, which turns out there were like 5 other tables next to ours and they all had came from the concert. So it was pretty cool to kinda have an after-concert 'party', hearing other people's thoughts and stuff.

Finally got home around 1:30am, and went straight to bed.
Long day, awesome concert.

Definitely the best one I've seen from Al. That man never slows down, does he? Seems each concert improves each time I see him.

[weirdalisthephantomoftheopera]

The concert was AMAZING! I've gotta do my obligatory review, but I'll leave out the song stuff because Jon has so nicely done that for us... and I can't really remember everything!

Yeah, as Joe said, we got to the fair extremely early and yet, we didn't see anyone until we were already in the amphitheater. Insane. We saw Stephen, Ludo, Tony, and Marissa first, then Kristine, but after we were seated, we saw everyone else. It was hilarious to alternate between twitter and texting until I finally called Amerah to point out where we were sitting and waving. I saw Jon's miming too! Brilliant, sir. (Though aside from the blowing of kisses, I couldn't really tell what else was going on...)

I LOVE this polka. Sure, it could be my love for Lady Gaga (What? Don't judge me!) or the fact that I could actually recognize most of the songs already in it, but it's just great overall in my opinion. My parents were even envious of me going to the concert after I showed them a video of it on Youtube!

I remained mostly spoiler free with the setlist and the only outfit I saw ahead of time was the WBUL one, so I laughed at the Skipper Dan outfit and others. I'm really glad I was spoiler free, though. It made the concert a lot more enjoyable and hilarious with the suspense and surprise especially considering I hadn't seen a concert of his since 2007 and this is the only one I'm attending this tour.

The seats were pretty good, but my camera only got so-so pictures because I had to zoom in so far. I even had to change the battery three times because the flash kept eating my batteries up. I had enough extras though.

Lastly, I gotta say going back with Amerah, Kristine, and Jon was awesome. Jon had a great plan to wait until the crowd settled down some before approaching Al because he was swamped and this wasn't even the show with the most family and friends. That's tonight's show, so I'm glad that I went to the Friday one instead! By waiting, we were able to get a little more time in, which was great because it was Amerah's first time meeting Al! We all sorta gathered around and took turns, and I was last. However, after he talked with Joe, other people caught his attention and he walked away before I got to say anything! Eventually, I went over and introduced myself, which was awesome. He remembered me from the last time I met him and gave all the WOWAY gifts for his birthday and from the picture he and I took that my aunt emailed to him. I have to remember next time to ask what shampoo he uses! It was fun to talk about our similar hair and such.

Anyway, yeah, it was A LOT of fun and I hope everyone that's going to tonight's concert has a lot of fun too! I can't wait until the next tour!

[Killingsworth]

Wow...Jon, Kristine, OE...it was great to read all of your reviews...it really seems like Al's LA homecoming shows really are the best on any given tour...now, I have a few comments to make on Jon's and OE's reviews posted...

Skipper Dan: I didn't understand what was going on with the first part of the costume from the pictures I had seen, but the hat really sells it as a troubled actor at first. The skipper costume is pretty cool too. One question: why are the pep peps played as pre-recorded? Couldn't Jim and or Steve sing that part?

I think the "pep peps" were pre recorded tracks because Jim and Steve were already singing background vocals for actual lyrics in the song like "and I dreamed of Hollywood" and "bop shoo wah" and it would be a bit of a challenge to sing both of those parts

CNR: I love-love-LOVED the intro Charles Nelson-Reilly video which I assume was a promo for Game Show Network. I would be interested to know if this was a spot made by GSN or if Al had this produced.

hmm...my guess would be that GSN actually produced this (at least just for Al if not to air during commercial breaks)

Let Me Be Your Hog: The fact that this is now a regular song in the setlist is so incredible I don't even know what to say about it, but the way it's presented is really funny, especially at the end when Al cuts himself off by saying "baby baby babyok this next song..."

wow...this BETTER get posted on YouTube...like, TODAY...if anyone got it, of course...

eBoring should be taken out of the medley next year even if it is popular. At least play a shorter bit from it...Bus was a nice touch. I wouldn't have minded another old school accordion jam like Rocky Road or My Bologna in the medley. The more of those old accordion songs the better IMO...Drive Thru, good to hear verse three instead but again time to say goodbye...

heh...you're probably the first person I've heard call "eBay" that, but yeah, I agree...I'm sure Al will cut the second verse to make room for another supporting parody from the new album on next summer's tour...I also think there should be at least one more 80s accordion jam in there...and Drive-Thru has definitely run its course...I do find it odd that Al left off on "I can't believe there's no wallet" on the last tour and completely skipped over the part where they scrounge up change in the car..oh well, I guess he was trying to considerably shorten the medley and didn't think that would be too big of a cliffhanger since he must have figured that everyone who would actually pay good money to see him in concert owns the album (considering what a smash hit SOL was in general) has heard the song/seen the video and knows how that part goes anyway...

Craigslist: This was easily the most interesting live performance of the Internet Leaks. I hope this one never leaves the setlist. Everyone in the band was wearing an interesting costume and I really liked seeing Ruben and Steve play side by side for some reason. Al's Jim Morrison was classic and you could barely hear him whispering about styrofoam peanuts. San Vicente Blvd line got a good laugh; was wondering if this is changed from venue to venue. This was I think my second favorite song of the night.

First off, I wouldn't be too shocked if this was cut entirely from the setlist of the 2013/2014 tour. I could see it getting a bit dated, but since eBay (or eBoring as you have so cleverly dubbed it) has stayed in the medley for this long, (and maybe since Al seemed so confident in promoting this as the lead single from the EP that it's evidently the only original song he's based an article of clothing off of) I guess I could see it staying. Secondly, I'm pretty sure the Portland show may have been the ONLY one where he changed the "San Vicente Blvd." line.

Amish Paradise: I will always hold this song to a higher plateau because this was the first song where I went from starting to like Weird Al in 95 to wow I really love Weird Al more than most people love most things in 96. And you would think Al would be so tired of singing this by now, but you'd be mistaken. He really changed it up a bit on the delivery of the raps and there seemed to be a new vitality to the song. This song delivered all I could hope for and more. I think I can say this was the best AP performance I've seen, including the 1996 show. It should never leave the setlist, and I assume it never will.

White & Nerdy: Hard to believe how far Al has come in his ability to pull this off live. When I first saw him do it on Leno it was barely pulled off but now he really has his routine down with Jim and Steve. Oh yeah and the Donny Osmand clips used were ridiculous. I don't think they were the same as SOL tour. Also he is so good on the Segway.

I can kind of see where you're coming from. I would say that W&N was the first song where I was starting to like Weird Al in the fall of 06 and Amish Paradise and SLN were the first songs where I gradually started going to wow I really love Weird Al more than most people love most things starting in February of 07. Also, maybe it's just because this was the first tour where I actually saw Al live in concert, but I really didn't notice the changes in AP for some reason...oh well...

Video Clip Sidebar: Loved the joke from I believe Letterman (?) about the Senate investigation of Weird Al Yankovic. If this was Carson please correct me somebody.

The "senate investigation" joke was indeed Carson. The Letterman joke was AL being downgraded from "Weird" to "Slightly Unusual". Strangely enough, I don't seem to recall a period where the senate was investigating Al either. I've been wondering myself if that clip was real or not. If someone on this board could fill me in as well, that would be great.

The Yoda Chant is just ridiculous at this point. Only part I don't like is that ghost castle thing because it's in plain English. I like that it's all weird sounds. Yo yo yo yo yooodaaaaa.

Strange...I actually like the presence of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" in the chant because I felt like it was really a chance for Jim to show off his vocal range after spending the rest of the show backing up Al...oh well...not to nitpick, but I just had to get those off my chest...and I'm really glad all you Orange County WOWAYers had such an amazing evening with Al on this tour...

oh, and regarding this review that OE posted earlier...yeah, it's definitely not as "glowing" as some other reviews of this tour that I've read elsewhere, but it isn't really that harsh, IMO...at least the guy begrudgingly pointed out what seperates Al from every other comedian/touring performer out there and how he keeps his act fresh and I really appreciate that...

anyway, summer is starting to wind down...what an epic tour this has been for Al and his fanbase...I hope all of you who went to see him this year had fun at those shows...I know I had the time of my life when the weird one came to Denver...and to those of you going on the remaining August/September dates or the Fun Fun Fun Festival in November, I hope Al still puts on a helluva show for you guys...anyway, I hope the rest of your summer was all right and have a great fall, everybody!

[Driew_La_27]

Secondly, I'm pretty sure the Portland show may have been the ONLY one where he changed the "San Vicente Blvd." line.

What did he change the line to?

[Orthography Enthusiast]

He changed it to a [name we didn't catch] on Broadway.