From: rgreen@acm.wpi.edu (Richard E Green)
Newsgroups: alt.music.weird-al
Date: 26 Jul 2002 03:46:23 -0700

Well, tonight I saw my 13th Weird Al concert, and without a doubt, the
BEST one EVER!!! I attended with my girlfriend Quinn, who is currently
up to 2 shows....not QUITE as obsessive as I am.

I was hoping to be able to get to more than one show, considering that
I came all the way from Connecticut, but due to some transportation
issues, Thursday was the only one we were able to get to. We found the
Orange County fair to have a ton of fun free things (and very
expensive rides and food as well) so we kept busy all day. We attended
The Weird Al Experience of course. It was a really nice display....not
TOO much new for me, but it would be impressive for any casual fan.
The collages of album covers was really interesting, especially with
some of the UHF singles which I've never seen before. It was also
really cool to see the costumes up close. Seeing Al's childhood
accordion up close was worth the ticket itself! While wandering around
the tent, I see Bermuda just hanging out. I went over and said hi, and
found out that he recognized me (but seemed surprised to see me with
somebody new)....he didn't stick around too long, but I got a photo
with him and got to chat with him for a minute or so.

After wandering around the fair a bit more, I started to run into
people I knew, both from the newsgroup and some that I met in real
life at previous concerts (I don't want to list names....I met so many
people today that I'm worried I'd leave someone out). Due to me
running into the right person at the right time, we were able to
upgrade to 4th row reserved seats. Dr Demento came out to the gate
around 6:15 PM. There was an unannounced autograph session with him
that spontaniously started up. This was my first time meeting him...to
tell you the truth this was one of the biggest highlights of the day,
even more so than seeing the show as I had been a fan of his for over
12 years. I was also really surprised and amazed to find out that he
was familiar with my radio show Chante Beusche and that he had even
listened in before. I got his autograph, as well as a photo and a
station ID from him. My day was made! After the autographs, he span
some records for the people waiting in the line, but we decided to get
some dinner instead so we wouldn't be hungry during the concert.

So then we went in and took our seats. They were off to the left, but
in the very front, so we were close to the stage but had no view at
all of the drumset. Right at 8PM Dr D came out again to introduce the
show, and the opening act, which was a comedian. He was actually
pretty funny....I didn't get most of the regional jokes, but he had a
great bit about Baking Soda, and the Geo jokes were gold since that
was the rental car I'd been driving.

Funzone started playing at about 830pm, instantly putting me back into
concert mode. I even was able to recall the moment when the lights got
dimmed. The opening video consisted of a bunch of 50's scifi clips
(differrent from previous tours) with some Brady Bunch, Teletubbies,
Evil Dead, Bullwinkle and other random clips mixed in. And then the
series of people saying 'weird al yankovic' recycled from the 1996
tour (with some more recent clips) introduced the first song.

HOROSCOPE -- the whole band walked onto the stage and began playing
this. Al came out with his red MIDI accordion (set to trumpet) already
on his shoulders. I was really surprised that Al had the guts to open
the show with an original song (AFAIK he's NEVER opened with anything
but a parody in the past) but DEFINATELY no complaints. I couldn't
imagine how well this song could sound live. He nailed the bridge too.
FYI - the video screens had the names of all the constellations
popping up at the appropiate moment. I took notice of the band. Jim
was there. I presumed that Bermuda was there since I saw him earlier
that day. Ruben was there which was a bit suprising since when I
talked to him at the end of the last tour he didn't sound like he'd be
back. Steve WAS there, but he was working guitar tech. Steve's son was
actually playing bass in this concert. He did a great job tonight.

"are you ready to rock?? well ARE YOU??? should we come back in five
minutes...cuz we're pretty flexible here ya know..." ... well this is
the part where they usually play a polka, but instead they performed a
new ORIGINAL song entitled Party at the Leper Colony. I can't say that
I really liked this song that much. It just doesn't seem AL enough. I
know Al's made quick jokes about Lepers in the past, but to write a
whole pun-filled (footloose, you'll lose an eye etc...) song about the
disease just doesn't seem like him at all. It's hard to describe the
sound of it since I had no idea who, if any, band it was supossed to
be tributing. Al was still playing his MIDI accordion for it, only
this time it was an electric organ sound.

they went in for a costume change after this song. the video clip was
1996's Madonna interview. I thought they were gonna be doing surgeon,
but there wasn't a platform being set up....plus I thought for sure it
was gonna be retired after all those hijinks on the last tour. They
came back out and did Pentiums, just like on the last tour.
after this was a series of short tv clips. I can't say off the top of
my head which ones were shown. some were recycled from the last tour,
and there were some new ones (sexiest videos, clay al at barmitzah). I
remember thaht the last one was from the 1st naked gun movie. Al came
back out, in a hawaiian shirt and performed Melanie. I saw this in
1996, but never expected to see it live again. It was done pretty much
the same way, down to him sitting on the edge of the stage. After
Melanie the slow somber piano music started up and Al began talking
about the horrors and pain of unrelinquished love. Then he did the
knife bit (yet another recycled routine) and performed another song on
the topic - One More Minute. For this song, Al really got around,
covering most of the floor section. He threw the boxers TWO seats over
from Quinn & I, in our row.

After OMM, the plots R Us video came on, which led into Beverly
(shortest costume change ever!). Al still had the AX-1, but was
wearing a sparkly jacket instead of the 80's look. This began the new
medley (possibly my new favourite!)

the second medley song was Jerry Springer, started with a new drum
solo. Al performed it up until the interlude, and then jumped to the
"pull on my finger" fade out. Next was Jurassic Park, done just like
the last tour. I noticed this was the first time that nobody seemed to
cheer or even care about the barney decapitation (guess he's just a
memory now). Free Delivery was next, with Steve Jr on recorder and Jim
on keyboards. Al's voice was perfect on it, even the high notes. Al
then picked up the black accordion for the first time tonight, held it
above his head and did a song I hadn't seen since my first show in
1994 - Theme from Rocky XII. Man this song rocks with accordion! And
then Jim donned the mandolin which meant that another song from 1994 -
Lasagna - was next, featuring an ab-libbed accordion solo that was
so-so. The same two verses from Rabbi were next, and then Al totally
mangled the accordion solo to My Bologna so much that I didn't even
recognize it until the rest of the band joined in. After Bologna, a
familiar drum solo started - the opening to the live version of Gump
(Al puts down the accordion at this point). I found it kinda funny
that they sliced a two minute song, but they played it up until where
"run run run run" begins, which was cut off by the pre-recorded
opening to Eat It, which as always, ended the medley. This was also
the only point in the concert where Al actually played the keyboard.

Next up was a well-deserved clip break. It started with Wheel of Fish
(yay!!! the c&d ends!!!), and then 60% Chance of Rain. Next was a drum
intro....hey....this sounds familiar.....where have I heard this
before....on a 1987 bootleg??......dude, they CAN'T be doing Dog Eat
Dog....just as I start to deny my ears, the keyboard part starts and
there is no denying it. And then moments later, there's Al, in his
David Byrne big suit doing one of my top 5 fav Al songs. How I hoped
for the day when I could yell WHERE'S MY LIQUID PAPER and not get
strange looks from the rest of the audience. Absolutely wonderful.
Al's moves during that song couldn't be done better by Talking Heads
themselves!

A couple more TV/UHF clips were shown (one of which was of Al
conducting a children's orchestra which I had never seen before) and
the 1988 Sting interview. Nirvana was up, and as I expected, the
stream of different was over. From this point on it was pure TWS.
Between Nirvana and Bedrock (which seemed REALLY outdated....and no
that isn't a caveman pun) was the Ozzy interview. Between Bedrock &
Amish was the Paul McCartney 1996 interview, with the reference to
Linda editted out. After Amish was the unplugged commercials (all 3
spliced together) and the Badgers scene from UHF, followed by Andy
Richter quoting it on his show (which I wasn't previously aware of)
and then into Fat. There were some interesting changes in this. Al
spent the entire second verse laying on his back with his feet in the
air (like at the beach). During the ho ho ho part, both jokes were
recycled - Santa ran out and gave Al a hoe, and then Al kicked him.
They did the typical Fat jam/goodnight after this, to a full standing
ovation.

After about 2 minutes, Orff's O Fortuna began playing over the PA, and
Darth Ruben came out to dance along to it. When he got to the
keyboards, he did a keyboard solo of an out of tune Chopsticks, and
then The Saga Begins began. After Saga, Ruben took down his hood and
put on a sombrero, and played the Mexican Hat dance, which started as
a solo, but was then joined by the band (including Al on accordion and
Jim on Mandolin) and then into Yoda, done exactly like TWS (same chant
-- I still got it!) and then the show was over.

We walked over to the right side of the stage where a line to nowhere
was forming (the idea is that those in the line were there to meet
Al). Steve Sr was hanging out and Quinn & I went over to talk to him.
He told us that he wasn't retired from playing, just that he is still
recovering from his surgery. He signed the 45's I was carrying with me
and posed for a photo. Eventually that line became a real line to see
Al. Skip made an appearance and his three rules list. When I came up
to see Al, I shook his hand and told him how much I enjoyed the show.
I asked him about that orchestra clip and he said that about 10 years
ago Schwartz, who was involved in a youth orchestra, invited him in to
guest conduct, and he found footage of it and decided to include it in
the show. I had Al sign my One More Minute promo 45 (only one
autograph -- skip's rules) and Al seemed really impressed with it for
some reason. Anyway, we had to leave after that. So we did our free
ride on the ferris wheel then headed back to the hotel to treat
sunburned arms.

This really was the best Al show I've ever seen! The setlist REALLY
reminded me of Bad Hair Tour's which was my favourite. Dog Eat Dog was
a HUGE pleasant surprise. Heck, so was Horoscope which takes a very
close 2nd for best performance that night. Leper was kind of a let
down, but at least it was something new. I was also pretty
disappointed that there weren't any new parodies (I was expecting at
least a verse of something in the medley) and NO POLKA whatsoever! I'm
really happy that Al didn't just do more TWS (although afterr 19
months, i doubt it was still in their system) and combining new, never
before played songs with some older ones that most people there hadn't
seen, plus some of the parody favourites made the show have something
for EVERYONE. And again, Al's got some guts to open the show with two
originals, and sticking most of the popular ones in the end, but it
sure left me on the edge of my seat,  since from the beginning he
established that it was gonna be full of surprises. The rest of the
band was incredible too. They have such charisma together, even with a
new Mr Jay with them. I can't wait for album news, and then a new
tour!

see the Weird Al Photos here...

http://users.wpi.edu/~rgreen/ocfair/

sorry these aren't labeled better.......spoiler warning - some photos
will give away specific concert detail.

enjoy

--Richard E Green
#161


The OC Fair Set List (July 22-26, 2002)


Your Horoscope For Today
Party At The Leper Colony (NEW SONG, YAY)
It's All About The Pentiums
Melanie
One More Minute
Parodies Medley
      Money For Nothing Beverly Hillbillies
      Jerry Springer
      Jurassic Park
      Free Delivery
      Rocky XIII
      Lasagna
      Pretty Fly For A Rabbi
      My Bologna
      Gump
      Eat It
Dog Eat Dog
Smells Like Nirvana
Bedrock Anthem
Amish Paradise
Fat
The Saga Begins
Yoda