So, Weird Al. Read more if you dare.

(Post title comes from his spoof interview of Jessica Simpson, in which she insists its "Jessica Sampson", to which Al responds that she can just call him the above.)

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We saw him at the Ram’s Head in Baltimore back in May. Crowded, hot, standing around, and poor acoustics. We saw him again last night, at Carowinds south of Charlotte. Sitting in an amphitheatre, much better acoustics, and none of the crowding/pushing/shoving/itchy burning sensation of the tavern-place. Overall very satisfactory. Michele was able to see Al’s costumes this time, her reaction to the heart boxers, pantyhose, spongebob shirt, and pink tutu outfit at the end of You’re Pitiful was appropriate: namely, laughing until she was about to cry. It had really irked me that she’d missed that before. I had missed the t-shirt prior to that final evolution that boasted the name of Atlantic Records during a strong emphasis on the song on one being a loser, which was a nice touch due to their permissions issue over that particular parody.

The songs were all excellent, and the sound better, as I noted. Al seemed short of breath on a few occassions, which isn’t like him (his long-windedness for comedy’s sake is infamous), but given the heat and humidity it was understandable. And hey, this time he didnt do the final verse of Close but no Cigar twice in a row and omit the second, as happened in May. He was a good sport then, of course, mocking himself for his goof. We got to hear Bob instead of "Why does this always happen to me?" as in May, and my appreciation for the random spew of palindromes is muchly increased having seen the source video from the Bob Dylan song. The medly was awesome, but seemed a bit shorter this time to me; Michele insists it was longer. Perception is a funny thing. The Saga Begins and Yoda were crowd pleasers as always, being some of my favorite Al songs personally as well. The Yoda Chant amazed Michele once again with its synchronicity between Al, Steve Jay, and Jim West. I was intruiged by the Hawaiian War Chant he mixed into it once again, so I looked it up this time around for future reading. And from our seated perspective above the stage, I was this time able to perceive the blinged-out Segway Al rides in on during the beginning of White & Nerdy. Tricked out tires and rims, yo, like, shiny!

As in May, his amazing closing act was a brief ode to keeping it real, since we all have cellphones. And then, to my once again immense pleasure, he did Alberquerque. Long song for an encore finale, but I really love it. He really played to the audience tonight, varying the normal tempo of the song greatly and with excellent storyteller style; it probably drove the band nuts trying to keep in time with him at some moments. Jim West got to have a moment in the sun during it this time, playing a very desperate attempt at Mary Had a Little Lamb before plucking a wrong chord and hanging his head in shame. In May, it was Ruben Valtierra who got to do a nice bit of piano solo, until his antics evoked Al to pull a starter pistol and blow him (temporarily) away. Fun other additions to Albuquerque include a new alternate nickname for Al’s wife in the song (sugar tarantula), and a much expanded selection of donut attempts prior to receiving his box of one dozen, starving crazed weasels:

• glazed donuts
• jelly donuts
• Bavarian cream filled donuts
• cinnamon rolls
• apple fritters
• blueberry donuts
• raspberry donuts
• strawberry donuts
• boisenberry donuts
• gooseberry donuts
• Halle Berry donuts
• maple bars
• old fashions
• french cruellers
• bear claws

Then of course Al receives flesh eating weasels, since the donut shop is out of all of the above. And to my (apparently far too sinister) glee, Al of course has revenge with his Weasel Stomping Day song and video, which Michele thinks I find far too amusing for its content. Most proper people should be mortified, apparently. Overall, it was a really fun time despite the sweltering heat, Al and the band played a great show (the guitar work and all the music for that matter was top notch, there were some really showy bits in there), and their combined stage presence of course was excellent in form and presentation. Yet, despite all that…the true entertainment of the evening came not from Weird Al and the band, but from those people immediately around us. Stage names have been substituted for the real ones, since I didn’t exactly stop these people to inquire as to how they’d like to be billed.

Firstly, I’d like to introduce you to Roy. Roy is a special fellow. He sat two rows ahead and 2 seats to my right, on the aisle. He looks to be late 20s, shaved/balding head, average guy. But let me tell you, Roy gets hyped up over Micheal Jackson parodies. I mean, you have to be hyped to be the one person out of about 13,000 concert attendees to jump to your feet pumping your arm repeatedly when Eat It starts playing. And again for Fat began. He almost clobbered a little girl in the aisle while trying desperately to match Al’s whip-snap of the fingers on the horizontal at the start. Follow up with completely random arm-pumping motions from a sitting position at points that have no discernible specialty to them in the concert, and Roy was a good highlite spectacle.

Immediately behind Roy was a couple who I call Hyper Aunt Sue and Reluctant Uncle Sam. HAS and RUS for short. HAS was really getting into the show. She did the arm waving thing, bouncing around in her seat. She even outright quivered several times. She became very still, but her torso vibrated, with what I desperately hope was suppressed enjoyment of the music and nothing else. Poor RUS, however, was not a fan. HAS rebounded off him numerous times during the evening, but never once swayed or even nodded his head to the beat. Truly, that is a well matched couple, for tolerance such as his for exuberance such as hers is an unlikely occurrence. The epitomy of humor in HAS and RUS came during Albuquerque, on the line about Al sharing the same piece of mint-flavored dental floss with his new love… HAS actually turned into RUS’ shoulder and retched. I thought for a moment she’d hocked something into his sleeve.

We’ve had two very successful audience entertainers mentioned so far. They aren’t the winners though. They’re the runner-ups. I’ll now, out of kindness, mention our other two honorable mention participants. The first goes to young Ellie May. She was an adorable little thing of probably 5 to 7 years, and, incidentally, was the almost-recipient of Roy’s aforementioned side-snap arm attack (patent pending). Her cuteness was mostly abated by the time that occurred, however, and security chased her back to her seat afterwards to avoid further injury potential. Early in the concert, however, she was a dancing fool. That poor girl was hopping around, waving her arms, and bouncing for all she was worth as Al jammed it out on stage. She looked like she was really having a good time. Until Weasel Stomping Day played, at least. She was conspicuously absent for a time after that video displayed its claymation vision of the weasel apocalypse. I know its not nice to derive enjoyment from a young girl being traumatized by fiction people wearing heavy boots and Viking helmets jumping gleefully on overly-cute clay weasels, but if she was really an Al fan she’d laugh too. Give her a few years, her outlook will improve!

Honorable mention numero dos goes to Thud. Thud is so named in remembrance of a fellow I knew at UMBC, who had a neck of similar epic proportions. This Thud had a head to match. Huge. With a bold first letter even. Thud sat directly in front of Michele. I swapped seats with her, since I stood a better chance of seeing around this massive human wall of a neck. Would’ve been easy, as I was equally his match in height, however Thud also liked to lean left and right for no other reason than he felt like it, and to do so constantly and at random whenever I was actually making an effort to see the stage. I prevailed in the end, but I did make several scalping motions at the back of his head at some of his more opportune movements. Thud earns bonus points for how he spent the 20min prior to the concert fiddling with his girlfriends bikini top, untying and retying it at least 5 times that I saw, as well as stretching it out and in general trying his best to wear a hole in the back of her neck. Thankfully, she had a t-shirt on over top of (most of) it.

Our winners in tonights audience-focus competition were Beavis and Butthead. They sat to the left of the seat formerly known as mine. Michele possessed it now, in an attempt for her to be able to see better. Baaaaad move. Beavis, who was immediately next to her, was tall, gangly, wearing a cammo-print bucket hat, and making a complete and total fool of himself. Butthead, to Beavis’ left, was short, somewhat squat, and as I found out at the end of the night, actually a cleverly disguised girl. The two of them put on a spectacle that rivaled Al himself, drawing my attention away from the stage numerous times.

Beavis was sitting in the chair immediately left of my assigned seat. However, Michele was sitting there, since her seat had Thud blocking her view with his monstrosity of a neck. Poor Michele just can’t get a break at concerts. Always someone tall in front of her, or people jostling her. She spent a good portion of the concert trying her best to fuse with the left half of my torso, so she could remain safely out of range of Beavis’ flailing arms. Thats right. Flailing. Why were they flailing, you ask? Because… Beavis was headbanging. To Weird Al. Throwing up the horns, waving his arms all around, and just headbanging like a constipated weiner dog! He spazzed completely for Canadian Idiot, and even worse come Smells Like Nirvana, and completely lost it and jumped up for Amish Paradise. I’m highly surprised he didn’t have a lighter for the latter, and rather thankful; he’dve burned the place down with his convulsions had flame been involved.

The best part about Beavis, was that I didn’t have to devote attention to waiting for him to do something funny/foolish. All I had to do is wait for Michele to lean heavily against me again in a vain effort to escape from him, then I knew I could glance over and be instantly entertained. Seriously, didn’t headbanging go out of style a decade ago? I seem to remember it being in vogue when I was in highschool, trends aren’t supposed to last that long in today’s youth (because if they do then today’s youth isn’t so youthful at that point). And even if headbanging is still accepted practice in today’s popular music circles, should it not be confined to the heavier rock/alternative genre where it is actually preferable to bruise your brain to the point that the lyrics start making sense?

And of course, Butthead on the far side of Beavis was doing the same kind of stunts. Due to shorter stature it was harder to see his antics, and as I mentioned before, he was also a cleverly disguised female. I noticed that when they were ducking out halfway thru Albuquerque, despite going hog-wild and jumping up and down during the first half of the song. Prior to this concert I would have professed that one would be hard-pressed to find a bigger Al fan than I that wasn’t currently under a retraining order to leave Al and his poodle alone at night, but I must reconsider this notion now. That, or consider the possibility that his constant brain-shifting motions had convinced him he was indeed at a concert with Coolio, Greenday, and Kurt’s zombie jamming out speedy alternate lyrics to their biggest hits.

Well, there’s my summation of the Weird Al experience this year. I’m sad that we now have another 3-4 years before a new album and a new chance to see Al, and his most entertaining fans, live once again.