Music
Weird Al is hit and miss at Massey Hall
Is Weird Al Yankovic still relevant? The hundreds who packed in at Massey Hall on Saturday night seem to think so.
I must confess, I used to love Weird Al when I was a nerdy teen. That was back in the day, when Eat It was playing in heavy rotation on Toronto Rocks. Now in the age of YouTube, Weird Al has found a global audience, his videos racking up millions of internet views. But does his live show cut it?
This is Weird Al's Alpocalypse tour, supporting his 13th album of the same name. This show relies heavily on the widescreen video above the stage to provide context to his parodies. Good thing, too. With such poor audio quality in the side balcony, I could barely make out most of the lyrics otherwise. You'd think the audio problems would be figured out after the early show., but they never really got a handle on it. Pity.
Weird Al's band is made up of aging dudes playing guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. But what they lack in youth they make up for in attitude. Most of what appears on the screen is flash-based animation. Without all this visual stimuli, watching the band go through all their video-based hits without video would be kind of boring.
Plenty of newer songs fall completely flat. Like the one about a 2,000-inch TV that ironically could've used the big screen much more effectively. The four pre-teens behind me appear bored and restless for most of the show.
Just then, Weird Al screams out, "Are you ready to rock?" And the crowd cheers. "Yeah, I was afraid of that," he replies. This next one's a ballad." He then proceeds to sing the acoustic "You Just Don't Love Me Anymore," a cleverly penned break-up tune -- the first song I can make out the lyrics to. A few nerdy boys around me pull out their iPhone Bics and start waving them over their heads.
At the end of the ballad, Weird Al goes berserk and smashes his acoustic guitar into smithereens. The crowd gives its biggest cheer yet. Even the young kids behind me perk up.
Then it's back to the video screen for an extended viewing of Al TV, which I remember seeing on MuchMusic sometime in the '90s. We get an interview with Eminem. Followed by Jessica Simpson. Then a brief bit of Brain Freeze sung to the tune of Nirvana's Rape Me.
All this time, Weird Al and the band had been preparing for their first transformation: Smells Like Nirvana, complete with cheerleaders. That's more like it!
One of the funniest video clips shown is one with Alanis Morissette: Weird Al is hanging out of her car as she sings Ironic. Perhaps we needed more Canadian content in this show? The Avril Lavigne interview clip actually gets me to LOL. But then we got this too-long song about Charles Nelson Reilly. Seriously.
Next up, a 30-second parody of The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Hog, er... Dog. Then finally, Weird Al connects with the audience doing Canadian Idiot, a la Green Day. If only I could make out the undoubtedly clever lyrics (see video clip, above).
Back on stage in a leopard skin leisure suit, Weird Al finally gets the show off the ground. He waltzes into the audience, serenading women in the crowd with lines like "My love for you's like diarrhea; I just can't hold it in" during Wanna B Ur Lovr. But he's no Prince. Charming!
The rest of the show is hit-and-miss. With the misses being the eBay song and I Want A New Duck.
Just as I begin to wonder where are his biggest hits, he busts onto the stage with his band, all dressed in black, donning big beards for Amish Paradise. At last! The choir of Mennonites on the screen is a nice touch.
For White and Nerdy, his most successful parody since the '80s, Weird Al takes the stage on a Segway while the rest of the band is dressed their nerdy best. As is the audience, by the looks of it. Could it get any geekier?
Sure enough, Weird Al is back with an encore. But what could out-nerd White and Nerdy? Star Wars or Star Trek, take your pick.
Leave it to Weird Al to pull off an entire song sung in Klingon. Then, dressed in Star Wars garb, accompanied by 12 white stormtroopers and R2D2, he sings The Saga Begins to the tune of American Pie. I even spot two guys in the balcony who've brought light sabres to the concert. OMGWTFBBQ!
Photo of Weird Al in concert on a previous tour by Jeff Diogenes on Flickr
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OK, I'm flying my nerd flag a bit too high here, but "Frank's 2000" TV" is from his 1993 "Alapalooza" album and probably older than the kids sitting behind you.
And "Soon I'm Gonna Be A Jedi"'s title is actually "The Saga Begins". Though for some reason the link in the review goes to the video for "Perform This Way".
It was smart of them and awesome I thought that they played all these clips up on screen of Weird Al making cameos in and being mentioned in everything, from The Simpsons to Johnny Carson. It just reminded me how amazing it all is seeing this this icon who've I've grown up watching on TV, in person, right in front of me.
Good article, though. I was one of the Smells Like Nirvana cheerleaders! :)
I am VERY surprised to hear that there was a problem with acoustics. Massey Hall was specially selected as the venue for the show taped for TV, I can't imagine such an important consideration was overlooked. I hope it comes out OK.
Franks 2000" TV is an OLD song, from 1993 Alapalooza album, a great fan favorite. The ballad is called "You Don't Love Me Anymore"
Those "four aging dudes" in the band are some of the best musicians in the world, who write, record and produce excellent albums of their own as well as scoring for film and TV. It is more than evident that you are in no way a fan, and to be honest, having seen a good number of his shows myself I cannot ever hear anyone saying they were ever bored by one of his high energy, engaging shows. I take your point about use of a video screen but ask yourself if the concert would have been as effective if there were no costume changes for the songs?
Al is most definitely my Prince Charming there is no doubt and I'd love to see how many more nearly 52 year olds could put on two two and a half hour shows in one day with that level of attack, dedication and energy. The general consensus of audience members leaving the two Massey Hall shows was that both were great shows and even newcomers were saying it was the best rock concert they had ever seen
The audience wasn't all that nerdy. Some were dressed up pretty stylishly for a night on the town. Heck, there was one rather attractive woman in a black dress in the middle of the floor seats who seemed to know the words to just about every song. My friend and I were impressed by how diverse the crowd was, and we were in a great position to take notice, sitting up at the front of the left side balcony with our light sabres. ;)
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See what he did there?
I'm sorry if my knowledge of Klingon isn't up to par. The Yoda Chant sounded like Klingon from where I was situated. Perhaps if they got the audio right, I'd have been able to decipher the difference.
Of course, I know most of the lyrics to most of his songs (including the new ones. nerd. represent) so I could still sing along. That being said, I have no idea why he has a new song about CNR. The irony statute of limitations has long run out on that one. Could Urkel be next (well, in 10 years)?
I've been a fan of Al's for years ... since his "Dare to be Stupid" days.
The afternoon concert was okay, not great. The lyrics were hard at times to make out which surprised me since Massey Hall is such a great venue.
It seemed like he was playing to the cameras not the audience.
Guess seniority does pay off.
Writing from the perspective of an aging, one-time fan of Weird Al seeking to rekindle his interest was a brilliant choice.
I like the way you give us a clear time line of your "in character" interest by referring to an 18 year-old album as new. This gives us a clear frame of reference for the perspective you're eschewing throughout the piece. Your disparaging remarks about everything from the band's age to the props brought in by other audience members serves to clearly delineate yourself from the "nerds" (both on-stage and off). Good to see that McCarthy-esque tactics are finally making a return to good, solid writing.
Honestly, I didn't think this article could get much better - but you found a way! By purposely fudging facts, mis-spell artists names, and even giving erroneous titles you successfully found a way to to out nerds online.
Kudos!
Now I can safely say that I understand the perspective of a belligerent, prejudiced pseudo-fan who's lost touch with people whom he (self-admittedly) once called peers. And for that, I thank you whole-heartedly.
One question remains though. Why didn't you offer your seat to a true fan if you knew from the outset that you weren't going to have a good time?
Roger's job isn't to be a fan of the music. His job is to write his own opinions about the show that he went to. I am not a fan of Weird Al, never have been, but Roger's article tells me that it wasn't a very good show. Roger has written several music articles in the past, so his opinion is valid as a "music reviewer". How many shows have you reviewed?
In any case, "Eat It" was on Al's second album -- the only song he played at the concert that was older than "Eat It" was "My Bologna".
Don't you mean far "fewer" factual errors? Perhaps you were fired for poor grammar.