A Night Of Pagentry, Polka & Parody: ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Dazzles At Madison Square Garden Debut

I first saw “Weird Al” Yankovic in 1999 on his “Touring With Scissors” tour. Having just started my concert-going journey, I thought the Westbury Music Fair was a big place to see a show. Looking back now, it only held about 3000 people, but at the time I thought it was huge. Since then, I’ve seen Al everywhere from theaters and summer sheds to the Apollo Theatre and Carnegie Hall and never imagined I’d see him in any arena, let alone the World’s Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden.

I don’t think he ever thought he’d play it either, considering it’s been over a decade since his last parody song and album came out, and he’s over 40 years into his career, but 15,000 people showed up on Saturday and sold MSG out. After the first few songs, Yankovic acknowledged the moment, saying it’s hard to live in the moment sometimes, so he walked away from the microphone, and the crowd stood up and roared for the moment. He thanked everyone while waving his hands to settle down and said, “Well, I’m on my way to the record, only 149 more shows and I’ll tie Billy Joel.” For someone who rarely ever deviates from the show, even the inbetween song and introduction pieces, it was nice to see the moment hitting Al on stage and how important it was to him.

One big change for this tour is that, for the first time ever, not including when he played with a full orchestra in 2019, there are four extra musicians on stage to round out his usual band, which has been with him since the beginning. Yankovic wanted a bigger band to debut songs that have never been performed and made use of the new members immediately with the Crosby Stills and Nash-esque “Mission Statement,” the latest polka song that uses today’s pop stars’ songs as the lead-in to “Polkamania!” and “Everything You Know Is Wrong.” Fans didn’t care that the big hits weren’t performed right away as they sang every word back to Al and the band from the get go.

Al’s first big costume change came next for “One More Minute,” just a nice blazer, but he was soon in the orchestra singing the song and giving gifts to various women he passed in the crowd. The actual costume changes followed next, though, with video packages to fill the time including his AL-TV interview segments, his guest spots on everything from The Simpsons to Robot Chicken to Teen Titans, and clips from The Naked Gun, UHF and various parodies he’s done.

The hits and costumes came quick with “Smells Like Nirvana” and appropriate grunge attire, “Dare to Be Stupid” and the yellow Devo outfits, and then a wild medley that started in suits for “Party in the CIA” and “All About the Pentiums,” the red jacket got worn for “Eat It,” a surgeon hat for “Like a Surgeon” and ended with a Candian blazer for “Canadian Idiot.” Watching Yankovic flawlessly pull off the outfit changes and not miss a beat at 65 is one the more impressive live music feats of the year so far.

Hearing 15,000 people say “Ding Dongs man, Ding Dongs” was not on a bucket list of things I thought I would hear, but that’s what happened before Al emerged in the “Fat” costume and did the Michael Jackson parody. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story was acknowledged twice, first with a clip showing “Another One Rides the Bus” and second with the closing credits song “Now You Know,” which included multiple fake endings. One nice carryover from his “Self-Indulgent Tours” was a cover per show and he did a perfect rendition of Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al”, including Steve Jay nailing the bass solo.

There were definitely some surprising inclusions on the setlist going with some originals for cartoons and style parody songs over something from UHF or some older hits, but the show covered his entire career with nine albums represented. “White and Nerdy” and “Amish Paradise” closed out the main set in costumes for each song, including a little homage to James Brown with the cape to end it all.

To no one’s surprise who’s been to one of his shows the encore and showed ended with “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda” with costumes, Storm Troopers, Darth Vader and RD-D2 on stage. As confetti was blown into the crowd, the whole band took a bow and then pushed Al forward for him to get just a bit more love on his own, which he did with a wave and a huge smile. His whole career has always been on his own terms and it’s pretty great to see him climb to the mountain top.

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