I understand that, even though he's currently in his fifth decade of being the jester in music's royal court, people still see him as a novelty act. They hear his name and think, "Oh, yeah, the guy who did 'Amish Paradise' or 'Eat It' or 'Smells Like Nirvana'." They think of a guy who essentially karaokes new words over someone else's music and makes something somewhat amusing. It's cute. But it's not a talent. Here's where they're wrong. Well, not wrong, but unaware of the whole truth. "Weird Al" has released fourteen studio albums, each with five parodies and a polka medley on twelve of them. The rest of each album contains original music, often in the style of a particular artist: "Mr. Popeil" in the style of the B-52s, "Trigger Happy" in the style of the Beach Boys, "My Own Eyes" in the style of the Foo Fighters, and dozens more.
The breadth of these songs, the focus of Al's current tour (fully described as the "Small Venues, Back To Basics, Stripped Down, Nothing Fancy, Theatrics-Free, No Videos, No Costumes, No Props, No Frills Whatsoever, Non-Extravaganza, Sort Of Kind Of Unplugged-ish, Cut-Rate Production, Taking It Down A Notch, Super Casual, Low Energy, Old Guys Sitting On Stools, Just Hanging Out On Stage, Pulling Out None Of The Stops, Trying Not To Work Up A Sweat, Fun For Us Maybe Not So Much For You, None Of The Songs You Really Want To Hear, All Of The Songs You Usually Skip Over, Obscure Original Tunes, Deep Cuts And B Sides, No Hits, All Filler, Lowered Expectations, Let’s Just See What Happens, This Might Really Suck, Crowd-Disappointing, Audience-Baffling, Limited Commercial Appeal, Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour"), requires a band with tremendous talent and range. And I'm the first to admit that if this were an ironically normal Al tour, we wouldn't have to go to both shows; on a normal tour, everything is planned to the minute: the same two dozen songs, the same costumes, the same jokes; it's the same show every night. But this tour is the opposite. In its 2018 incarnation, Al and his band played seventy-seven shows and had a setlist that rotated through fifty-one songs, many of which they hadn't played live in years, if ever. Compare that to Taylor Swift or Luke Bryan or Drake who do the same set every night. Even on Luke Bryan's last tour, he ended with the same cover. Al and his band, by comparison, offered a different cover every show. That's seventy-seven songs they had to know in addition to the fifty-one songs from their own catalog. And they had to be ready to change it up at a moment's notice; it's not like they said, "Okay, I only have to know these twenty-something songs for tonight." There were times Al called an audible and changed the set list mid-show. The range of covers included popular hits like Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode and know-your-audience selections such as Devo's "Uncontrollable Urge", They Might Be Giants' "Particle Man", and Tom Lehrer's "The Elements Song".
All of this is to support one idea. His band is insanely talented! And this is what y'all missed by not taking advantage of my moment of inattentiveness. A band that has the same members since Al's debut in 1983, not counting his keyboard player, Rubén Valtierra, who has been with the band only since 1992 (thirty years in and he is still considered "the new guy"). A band that shifts from pop-metal to country to rap to swing to zydeco to you-name-it seamlessly, because they can play it all and they can play it all well. They have to, because if you're going to play a parody of Huey Lewis or Madonna or Dire Straits or Chamillionaire or Lady Gaga or Imagine Dragons, you have to sound like them. Every one of them. Every time. And they do. Because they're that damn good. Seriously, you should have gone. Not to rub salt in the wound, but, yeah, you missed something truly amazing.
Want a quick, twenty-five minute overview of all the cover songs they did? Go here. Have four hours on your hands and want to hear them all in their entirety? Check this out.
And as a thank-you for reading this far, here's a picture of Horatio in a recycling bin:
Truly glad I took the tickets. The show was unbelievable. There were songs I'd not heard in decades, and truly - the band was excellent. During the encore, there was this acapella mish-mash that Al, Jim and Steve performed which was one of the most enjoyable things I've witnessed on stage.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/IHq65MKdTxE?t=5645
(the cameraman in the above video singing out of tune notwithstanding, this is the acapella part)
Also, Emo Phillips was the opener, and gotta tell you - he was hilarious. Amazingly so.
As always, thank you Mosh!!!