I got to see Weird Al last night at the Keswick – “HELLO GLENSIDE!!!” he said. I’ve never heard anyone say that before.
His show was retroactive – he started with a bunch of new stuff that was a bit more ribald than I recalled previously, and then got into the grunge era, then into the Jacko spoofs – “Beat It” and “Fat”.
On one of his songs, which I don’t know what song it was based on, but it was all about how his favorite TV show was interrupted by news of an earthquake with thousands of people dead and more injured. His response of course is to curse the broadcasting company and say “why does this always happen to me?” before employing the clicker.
He mentioned Peru and 8 points on the Richter scale. I thought he was just being random but just saw the google headline.
Suffice it to say that I’m glad my inner man has matured, I think when I was in junior high school me and Al were parallel in terms of social consciousness… er, callousness.
High Point of the Show:
The Star Wars songs – he did American Pie which he sings – “my, my, this here Anakin guy, may be Vader some day later, now he’s just a small fry. And he did my beloved “Yoda” – Y-O-D-A, Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yoda”. On the first song, a host of Storm Troopers came out and shimmied back and forth to the music with Darth Vader and Boba Fett. Delightful!
Low Point of the Show –
After the Amish Schoolyard slayings of last year, I thought it was very poor taste for him to do “Amish Paradise” (based on a gangsta song) 50 miles from Pennsylvania Dutch country. Let them be!
A notable omission to the show was “Rye or the Kaiser”, based on the Rocky III theme, “Eye of the Tiger”, a local favorite. As an encore he did “Alberqerque” which is just obnoxious.
Summary
I wondered whether his portrayal of American pop-culture, laziness, and overall narcissism was part of a larger social statement (against it, perhaps), but cannot find any evidence to prove anything other than a talented artist/performer exploiting the overall bloated deterioration of a culture for his own sake.
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