Review: Weird Al Yankovic at Astor Theatre

Weird Al Yankovic at Astor Theatre
w/ Emo Philips
Saturday, March 18, 2023

No one has dedicated themselves to the art of musical parody more so than Alfred Matthew Yankovic. From a young age he sensed his calling, inspired by his prodigious accordion playing, passion for odd humour, and the comedy radio show of infamous Southern Californian DJ, Dr. Demento, who famously gave Weird Al his start by playing an early demo of his, the ridiculous My Bologna, inspired by The Knack’s My Sharona, which was in the charts at the time, and the sandwich meat in his fridge (something we call polony). It was a winning formula, and he never turned back.

While he completed a degree in Architecture, we’re fortunate that Yankovic opted instead to pursue his comedic dreams! And his genius idiocy and sharp wit is as brilliant as it ever was, and needed more than ever. On Saturday night, the man, the myth, the legend, was in town. It was hard to know what to expect, but he did not disappoint, with an inspiring, energetic and hilarious performance with his band, demonstrating his devotion to his craft, commitment to the gag and sheer musical brilliance.

Through the 80s and 90s, Yankovic became the biggest-selling comedy recording artist of all time. He dominated the charts and video shows, and you hadn’t made it if Weird Al hadn’t made a parody of your song. He's released 14 studio albums since 1983 and won five Grammys. But for many he’s always kinda seemed like some sort of fictional character, a jester with superhero powers of parody and musical dexterity.

More recently he’s made various TV cameos, and last year he released the biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. In true Weird Al style, the movie is a totally ridiculously parody of a rock star biopic. While it does tell his story, in a roundabout way, it’s exaggerated, with young Al being a wild rebel, going to late night polka parties and playing accordion, gaining overnight success and becoming a clichéd hedonistic rock star, doing drugs and sleeping with Madonna. (who really did request him to parody one of her songs, resulting in the absurd Like A Surgeon). What makes the concept all the more amazing is the fact that he got Daniel Radcliffe to play him in it.

Some may recall Weird Al was scheduled to play at Southbound in 2016, but the legendary Busselton festival was called off that year due to huge bushfires, so sadly he never made it. But here he finally was, in probably a more appropriate setting, though with a twist. Weird Al’s shows have always been over the top, ridiculous affairs with props and costume changes recreating the videos of his greatest hits. But this tour was a little different. Hilariously titled, The Unfortunate Return of The Ridiculously Self-Indulgent Ill-Advised Vanity Tour was a bold move, with Yankovic playing only his original songs, none of the big hit parodies for which he’s known. And the gamble paid off well.

As well as the many famous parody tracks, his albums have always featured original songs that are equally as funny, and finally he had the opportunity to showcase them to his fanatical followers. His original songs still often parody certain bands styles, as well as general musical genres and tropes. In this way Yankovic is a musicologist of incredible skill and knowledge, replicating sounds and production techniques. He lifted songs from throughout his catalogue, some more obscure than others, but his excited fans seemed to know them all. Who knew that Perth was so full on Yankovic supernerds?! It was a joyous crowd of all ages, gathered to pay homage to their hero of mirth.

An added bonus was the acerbic and cerebral comedy legend Emo Philips in support. A similar vintage and weirdness to Al, their friendship goes back many years. Everything about Emo is ridiculous, and he’s also maintained his look and style from the 80s, from his bowl cut hair, silly outfit and ridiculous voice; to his props, and greeting cards – a pioneer for weirdo comics and surrealists everywhere. It was a short but sweet set from a comedy legend, who perfectly warmed up the room with his weirdness, ending on one of his classic jokes with a long build up – one of the greatest jokes about religion you’ll ever hear.

After a short break and some epic intro music, suddenly there he was with his band, Weird Al Yankovic in the flesh! In a typically loud shirt, they were all seated while playing. They got stuck in right away with Lame Claim To Fame – a rocking tune listing lame stories about people encountering someone famous, like lining up at the grocery store behind Steven Seagal, demonstrating his peerless ability to spin the banal into musical comedy gold.

He greeted the crowd, who greeted him back with wild applause, and gave a shout out to his buddy, “If you'd told me 40 years ago that I'd be travelling on a bus with Emo Phillips now… I'd be like yeah that's sounds about right.”

He reiterated that they wouldn’t be playing any of his big parody hits, and that there were still some people being disappointed, despite the clear advertising. But we were treated to an incredible mix of material from his extensive career, as well as some great little stories around them.

Bob, a song sung in the style of Bob Dylan, Yankovic explained, was written in 2002, a palindrome year, which inspired him to write the amazing lyrics, which themselves are all palindromic! Quite a mean feat. And not only that, but his nonsensical delivery in the style of Dylan, made it sound very much like a real song.

As the night progressed, what was most amazing was how genuinely great the band was, and what an impressive and dynamic voice Al has. They kept you hanging on every note and silly line. And there were huge cheers at the end of each song. It’s the way they make songs that are not only funny, but they masterfully recreate a whole sound. Yankovic can replicate many vocal styles, even rappers, and just nails it every time, yet still sounds distinctly like Weird Al.

As such a physical comedian, he seemed to have a hard time sitting down with his band of merry old men, almost jumping out of his seat, waving his arms around and kicking his legs in the air, when he wasn’t playing his trademark accordion. For a man of 63, he’s still incredibly sprightly and full of enthusiasm.

His long time band members are a talented, tight and incredibly versatile unit who play their parts well. He introduced them with semi-true stories – like, the drummer he met when he performed Another One Rides The Bus on the Dr. Demento radio show, and needed someone to bang on his accordion. The guitarist he met on a cruise ship and the keyboardist on Grindr he said, and he signed them all to a 45 year contract!

“This song is like that ones we played back then on the cruise ship,” he said by way of introducing Dare To Be Stupid, the song from his 1985 album of the same name, and it was indeed daringly stupid.

He told a story about back when he was trying to get his start, he got on the Dick Clark show, which was a big deal, but they ended up censoring the song they performed, One More Minute. A bitter breakup song, but sung in the style of a 50s doo-wop love song. The network didn’t like the line “I'd rather clean all the toilets in Grand Central Station with my tongue, than spend one more minute with you.” So they decided to beep out the word “tongue,” which Al felt made the line even worse!

While some of his gags are in poor taste, his humour is incredibly mild by today’s standards and is really just charming in its pure goofiness. Such as when he said he was going to play some Zydeco music (a southern, French Creole genre) and broke out the accordion much to everyone’s delight, then said “90% of Zydeco music is about Pearl Jam singer, Eddie Vedder,” an intro to the hilarious My Baby's in Love With Eddie Vedder.

The laughs were relentless, with Dog Eat Dog next, a Talking Heads pisstake about the competitive corporate office grind, referencing donuts and coffee mugs, singing with impassioned, jerky David Byrne conviction, “Where's my liquid paper?!”

At one point Yankovic suddenly shouted out “Harpsichord solo!” and the keyboard player launched into a finger-blistering run. Then there was the sweet, but increasingly insane love ballad Melanie “Melanie, why won't you go out with me? I have to go through your trash to learn more about you.”

There was also a two second drum ‘solo,’ which segued into Frank's 2000 Inch TV – which is very much in the key of R.E.M. Songs like this might not be direct parodies, but are very close band homages.

He talked about how his new movie had only just came out a couple days ago, legally, in Australia and asked if anyone had seen it. There were a lot of cheers. “You hooligans!” he retorted. “I release a new movie every 33 years, like clockwork!” This led into the title track from his 1989 breakout movie, cult fav UHF (which also featured a cameo from Emo).

Your Horoscope for Today was a light-hearted romp through some ridiculous fortunes, mocking the star signs. Al wrote the head banging I’ll Sue Ya for Rage Against The Machine he said, but they sadly didn’t use it. Once again, his amazing band blew minds, pivoting into metal territory. The huge riffing track sounded very much like it could be a RATM outtake.

The sentimental old ditty The Good Old Days started off with sweet, nostalgic childhood images of apple pie and first loves of our protagonist, before escalating into burning down houses and straight up homicide.

One of the highlights of the night with its arch-ridiculousness was Craigslist which isn’t a direct parody, but is done very much in the style of The Doors The End, an epic tale of all sorts of things you can buy online, with rambling sequences from a Morrison-esque Al, even referencing Dome Cafe on the Terrace. The lights went all psychedelic and again it was amazing how much they evoked the sound and spirit of The Doors, as he sang “Do you want my Styrofoam peanuts?”

As the end of the night approached, he said “I know what you’re thinking – it's March, are they gonna play a Christmas song or what?!” Just what we were thinking! The Night Santa Went Crazy was a delightfully insane track about Santa's murderous rampage, including barbecuing reindeer with a flamethrower and they ended on the ludicrous epic yarn, The Biggest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota.

As they finished, they got up and just kinda walked to the side of stage and hung around aimlessly, Yankovic even playing around on his phone. The drummer even started cleaning his drum screen. Pure buffoonery. Then suddenly they jumped to attention, ‘returned’ to the stage and took their positions again.

The encore was the icing on the cake. As they asked for requests for any song ever, and the crowd started shouting out random songs, Al sarcastically said “Oh wow, it’s unanimous!” before they launched into an unexpected cover of The Exciters’ 1963 classic Do Wah Diddy Diddy (also famously covered by Manfred Mann).

But the real treat was next, as the band launched into an impressively seamless and well-rehearsed medley of some of Weird Al’s biggest parody hits. It’s just a shame they were all only touched on briefly. But we got a taste of Amish Paradise (famously parodying Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise) into a few verses of Smells Like Nirvana, as well Yankovic showing off his rap skills with the amazing White & Nerdy (sending up Chamillionaire’s classic Ridin’) and one of his latest and greatest efforts, Word Crimes – a perfect parody of Robin Thicke’s offensively bad Blurred Lines – before the climatic sounds of the resoundingly excellent Yoda – a spot on parody of The Kinks classic Lola. Another segment of hits woulda been amazing, but the man and his band had given more than enough in a long show with relentless madcap energy.

Yankovic is the world’s clown, a manic weirdo and mad musical genius who's truly the best at what he does. There will never be another like him. All Hail the Nerd King of Comedy!

WEIRD ALFRED GORMAN

Photos by Alfred Gorman and Lucas Packett Photography courtesy of Amnplify