Sep 21 2007

Weird Al or Why I am Deaf In One Ear

My husband and I’s 1 year wedding anniversary is fast approaching and, as those that care about such things know, this is our "paper" anniversary. We talked about it and agreed that we wouldn’t give each other anything big, just something little and cute since we are taking a trip for our anniversary to the Food and Wine Festival down in Disney.

However, my husband, it seems, plays dirty and, though he promised only a small gift, surprised me on Tuesday with (paper, of course) tickets to see Weird Al in NYC on Thursday.

Now, I love Weird Al. I have always loved Weird Al and I have never seen him in concert in my life but always wanted to. So this is an especially perfect gift because not only is it something I really wanted, it is also "paper" without being a stretch so my husband is like some kind of an evil genius.

(Nevermind that I am now frantically revaluating what I had for him, feeling like I need to add something onto my gift to make it better, since he upped the stakes so high.)

The concert was awesome. We were 4 rows from the front, but off to the side a little so I am basically deaf in my left ear because we were so near to the speakers.

Weird Al puts on a hell of a show. You definitely don’t have to be a fan to enjoy it. It’s like going to five concerts since he does so many genres. He had a ton of costume changes (for example, for Amish Paradise, the entire band was dressed like Amish and it was like that for every number) and gave it his all to the point where I do not understand how he was still able to sing by the end. He was running around the stage and singing and screaming like a maniac. He must need weeks to recover from each performance.

I know this is going to sound like an insane statement, but he is a good singer. I mean, he sounds just like himself, but usually when you see an artist live they sound like crap. He sounded great all night whether he was signing really high or really low and doing his Nirvana parody were he looks like he is going to break a blood vessel.

I was thinking to myself that he must be a really shy guy in real life because he was always "in character" and never talked to the audience as just "Al" which was strange but fits with his whole thing. If he was doing a rock parody, he was all "Hello, New York!" and when he was doing a rap parody he was all "word!" and doing wheelies on a Segway.

There were a ton of kids in the audience and I said to my husband that Weird Al really would be a great first concert to take kids to. It’s all the smoke effects, rock music and lighting of a real rock show, but with silly lyrics, no curses and people dressed like Darth Vader.

He does a lot of medleys because he has so many hits so he would do one verse and one refrain from many songs just to get them all in. In the midst of all of his "official" music, he came out at once point dressed like Gillian and sang, "I’m in love with a Skipper" to the turn of "I’m in love with a stripper" which was beyond hilarious, particularly because he was doing this hysterical spastic hip grinding.

He has this song I Wanna B Ur Lover which is all cheesy pick-up lines strung together and he went out into the crowd and sang each line to random people (male or female) and at once point was standing on the arms of the chair, gyrating in one person’s face.

The song White and Nerdy does describe most of the audience as there were some people that were obviously die hard fans as they were wearing the concert shirts and had been to other stops. There was this convention when Al sang his first hit, Fat, wearing this insane fat suit and mask that every time he jumped, his band would all jump like he was making the stage rock. The cool thing about this was the die hard fans, who have likely seen him do this before, all did it along with the band. So every time Al jumped, the band and some of the audience jumped up like 2 seconds later. It was very funny.

Anyway, it was a hell of a show and I loved it. My husband, who has been to many concerts, said it was actually one of the best concerts he had been to in his life and he is not a big fan like myself. He had heard a few of Al’s songs here and there but wasn’t a dork about it like me (I knew 90% of the lyrics and was singing along) and he still had a ball.

So, yeah, we are definitely going to go and see him next time he come to town and we are definitely getting a group together next time because they let you drink in the theatre (not that we did, but it’s nice to know it’s an option) and it is a hell of a good time.

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