On wednesday, sept 12 I took Jesse to the Puyallup Fair to see the Awesometasticest singer in the world, Weird Al Yankovic. I had bought tickets a month prior, they were almost sold out from what it looked like on several websites, so I took what I could. This is only my 2nd Al concert ever; I found out afterwards that it's Jesse's 4th.

I went up to meet her in Everett early that day. I hung out with her friend Sam, saw all her sexy World of Warcraft characters, and installed Morrowind on her computer. I also found out the breaks on my car needed work, and a huge fiasco erupted that almost seriously impeded our ability to make it to the concert. But my wonderdad took care of it so I switched cars in Seattle, and I drove Jesse down to Puyallup in my mom's car.

We arrived about an hour before the concert, had time to buy a big alien cup of lemonade for Jesse, cotton candy for us both, a "Mousy Xing" sign to bring home for my roommates' pet rat, and we each bought each other a marble necklace with our names on it. We also each picked up a Gideon's travel bible.

When we got into the stadium, we found that our seats were practically front row, just off to the right! I could have thrown a small object ONTO the stage with little effort, and I have a sissy arm. We were so close that the big video screen, showing closeups of the stage for the sake of far away seaters, was actually behind us so that we had to turn around to see it. The crowd was huge:


Band members Steve Jay & Jim West (I tend to forget which is which, pity me) were onstage tuning their guitars. There was a pre-show guy out (barely) entertaining the crowd, and he was about to leave when we got there. Jesse & I prepared by putting glowing rave rings on our necks & wrists. The show was about to begin.

Once the lights went down, and the crowd was charged, and the music started going, Al came right out with his accordion doing "Polkarama!", the polka off of Straight Outta Lynwood. It was very exciting. We were still puting our rave rings on at this point, it was so sudden.

Check out what Jesse looked like in the dark:


Then he stood up the mic and proclaimed proudly "Puyallup, Washington!" This made many people happy. (I was surprised because on some subconcious level I was expecting him to say "Seattle." I guess it makes sense that I'd think this subconciously, having heard it from him before, but it was also a surprise because he pronounced Puyallup correctly, when so many "foreign" celebrities wouldn't come close. Then again, this is what, his dozenth Puyallup Fair concert?)

He did like half of Straight Outta Lynwood all in a row to start. After that, it was a medley. A very good medley. It started with "Couch Potato", and went into about 20 other songs from there. I couldn't possibly remember more than a handful at this point.


Here's how he looked on the big screen behind us:


Most of the songs done were album work, not very much new stuff. But during the medley when he got to "Headline News" the lyrics changed to
Once there was this stripper
Who got herself a D.U.I. and got sent off to prison
And when she finally came back
She went on Larry King to talk about it
Could somebody please tell me why we should give a crap?
Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
The audience loved this one, as did I. Preach it, Al.
Also he did sing a Gilligan/Skipper love song.

Complete with video.
Speaking of video, there were lots of things playing on the main video screens behind the stage (not the big ones behind us); mostly, and bestly, were the interviews. Back when I saw the Bad Hair Tour many many years ago, he showed 2 "fake" interviews with celebrities, with clips from a real celebrity interview edited with himself asking questions, put together to make different, humorous context than when the celebrity was filmed. He did Madonna and Paul McCartney then. This time, he did like 40 of them! Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Celine Dion, Kieth Richards, Steven Tyler, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kevin Federline, Jessica Simpson (sorry, Jessica SAmpson), Micheal Stipe... it just kept getting better. At one point inverviewing Michael Stipe (R.E.M.) Al asked him to bust out some random lyrics that Al could turn into a duet song. Michael said "You know we all have cel phones, I mean come on, let's get real." So Al repeated that but in musical verse. I'll get back to this.

As always, he has a different outfit for every song. Here's "All About the Pentiums" And then there was "You're Pitiful". When he started singing this one, I was so busy telling Jesse the story behind the song and the whole Al/Atlantic Records/Straight Outta Lynwood thing, that I barely noticed that he started singing too early, then stopped and waited for the right queue, then started again. The audience didn't really mind. They were happy he was singing it.
What made them MORE happy was what he was wearing... dynamically. For, as he sang, he stripped layer after layer. First a regular shirt, then a sparkly shirt beneath, and beheath that a shirt that said clearly "Atlantic Records Sucks" (for some reason my picture of this one is broken and won't transfer to my computer). Beneath that was a Spongebob Squarepants shirt. After that, he took of his PANTS to reveal a pink tutu over red & white polkadot boxers. *sigh* he so reminds me of myself.


When he did The Saga Begins, it started out with a sortie of Storm Troopers, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader parading onstage. They stood there throughout the song bobbing their heads, didn't really dance, but at the last chorus Vader whipped out his light saber and they all swayed in sync. Al & the band were all garbed as Jedi.


Immediately after that he did Yoda.

They did the same thing they did back in the Bad Hair Tour: during the end chorus routine Al & the band members started this sequence of repentive chanting/gibberish/gestures that was very long and very perfectly synchronized between the 5 of them . When I saw this way back when I was amazed by the achievement of memorization and timing between them. Also it was the very end of the concert. This time, I was thinking, assuming that this would be same, "I guess they're saving White & Nerdy for the encore." Well, turned out there was still at least an hour of concert left, yay!

When he did "I Wanna Be Ur Lover", he came out into the audience, serenaded several women, and even climbed around on the seats.

Eventually he came 'round to our side, and came within 8 feet of us! If we were sitting 1 row further forward, I could have reached out and grabbed his pants shook his hand.



Wasn't too long, albeit pleasantly enjoyably long enough, before he pulled out the big gun (I'm speaking relatively; with an Al concert most musical guns are Vulcan Cannons) and did White & Nerdy.


I was so hecticly busy trying to take pictures (most of which came out crappy) that I barely noticed how it was affecting me. When the song ended I had to take a whole minute of catching my breath; it was a 4-minute long nerdgasm. I think Jesse was amused :P

It was so exciting, I'm somewhat blurred as to whether that was the last song before he headed off, but as usual as the audience cheered and the music played, he sounded off each band member so they could get their cheers, then waved his goodbye. The crowd began its obligatory chant "We want Weird Al! We want Wierd Al!" So very soon he came out for the encore, and said "I know what you all are wanting to hear." So the music played and he serenaded us to his hit new song You Know We All Have Cel Phones, I Mean Come On, Let's Get Real! It was so awesome. The audience took out their cel phones and held them up, their little screens lit up like lighters. By chance I looked over my shoulder, and saw half the people of the grandstands holding up their cel phones. Over a thousand tiny blue squares waving slowly back & forth in the darkness to the music... it was beautiful! I was moved to tears. Thus is the power of amazementnessicity that Alfred Matthew Yankovic can bring about.

After that, for his real last song, he was sure to make it last: it was Albequerque. An ~11-minute musical story, which, if I recall correctly, Jesse hadn't heard! So it was a learning experience for her. Learning how he epicly struggled for his lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel, put out a grease fire with his face, and above all HATES SOURKRAUT!!! Also, the donut shop was out of EVERYTHING. Including glazed donuts, jelly donuts, sugar donuts, strawberry donuts, raspberry donuts, blueberry donuts, boysenberry donuts, cranberry donuts, and HalleBerry donuts, to name a few.

Eventually, the concert had ended, Al had departed, the lights had raised. The event was over, but the magic was still in the air. We asked if there was a place we could wait for Al to come out and ask for an autograph, but alas it was backstage passes only, then he would be leaving. We hung around a bit to see what remained. Jesse gathered some confetti that had been projected onto the middle audience. There had been massive amounts of fake money blasted over the audience at some point too, but none was left by now. We watched the crew taking down everything around the stage. Someone threw one of Bermuda's drumsticks out which a couple girls dived onto the edge of the stage to grab, and when one of them got it, another guy offered her $100 for it. Of course she said No, she had one of John "Bermuda" Schwartz of Weird Al's Band's drumsticks! She'd eventually bequeath it to her grandchildren, I'm sure.

Eventually we made our way out, around the stadium, and out of the fair. On our way out I started singing Al tunes (which was hard because I had a cold and had been cheering my throat out all night), and while crooning "Everything You Know is Wrong", some random guy joined in. It was cool. After that I sang Jurassic Park, and he sang that too, then told me that he went to high school and was close friends with a guy who designed the claymation in the Jurassic Park video. It was so cool. I continued singing all the way back to the car and them some.

Thend.

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