The Mandatory World tour has reached the UK, with this being the second time Weird Al Yankovic has made it to this country. The first was for the God Speed You! Black Emperor curated All Tomorrows Parties festival in 2010. With only a handful of dates in the country we decided to make the trip to the nearest venue to the North of England, Birmingham. By 7pm doors the queue was reaching around the corner and through the underpass. By 8pm when the show begins though everyone is inside. The show has an early finish due to the Saturday night club night now the students are back, so you know the show will be within a two hour slot. Luckily it is only just shy of two hours…
The band are setting up on stage, but there’s no Yankovic, as he and his jazzy shirt are walking around the outside of the venue for his parody of Pharrell’s 'Happy’, called 'Tacky’. He passes cheerleaders, slaps a security guard, then appears on stage, and the comedy does not stop from there. It soon becomes clear that Yankovic and his band perform in costumes to match each song, so that’s a lot of costume changes, around seventeen in two hours to be exact.
We get eighteen songs (including two melodies) throughout the set, which may not be a lot compared to some shows. What makes this special is that the rest of the show is filled with comedic videos and fast cutting edits to make this time fly by. The couple of minute spaces are then filled with Yankovic’s funny re-editing of interviews with the likes of Eminem and Celine Dion, many American TV shows that mention or are faked to name drop Weird Al Yankovic ("Weirder then Weird Al on Weird Science!") plus animations and computerised graphics. The majority of the live songs also have video snippets with them too, like 'Now That’s What I Call Polka!’ Crazier than Gaga, if that’s possible. The problem here is that this venue is not suited for showing the large videos. The low lying ceiling due to the balcony restricts a lot of the view from around the sides and the back, so you spend a lot of the show either trying to stand central behind everyone to watch the video, then running up the sides to watch the man himself close up.
The best costume has to be the fat Michael Jackson suit for 'Fat’. There’s props for bubbles during the parody of Gaga and cannon streamers for Green Day’s 'Canadian Idiot’. 'White and Nerdy’ shows Yankovic on a Segway (and is the song that is still an earworm as I write this!). 'Smells Like Nirvana’ was a personal favourite, as was 'Amish Paradise’ as an early 'classic’ and 'The Saga Begins’ looked great with all the band dressed as Jedis and backing storm troopers and a Darth Vader, with Yankovic on his trusty accordion.
'Eat It’, the other food influenced Michael Jackson parody, was a great acoustic version, leading onto the second medley of songs for the night, including 'Like A Surgeon’ (Madonna’s 'Like a Virgin’). The other medley included the great 'Bedrock Anthem’, 'Another One Rides The Bus’ (Queen’s 'Another One bites The Dust’), 'Gump’ (PUSA’s 'Lump’) and 'Ebay’ (Backstreet Boys’ 'I Want It That Way’).
The show is fast paced, must be a logistical nightmare back stage with all those clothes rails and the funniest live show I have seen all year, taking into account the live music and AV content. Mandatory Fun… Voluntary Fun it was indeed.
Tacky
Lame Claim to Fame
Now That's What I Call Polka!
Perform This Way
Dare to Be Stupid
Fat
First World Problems
Foil
Smells Like Nirvana
Party in the CIA / It's All About the Pentiums / Handy / Bedrock Anthem / Another One Rides the Bus / Ode to a Superhero / Gump / Inactive / eBay
Canadian Idiot
Eat It / I Lost on Jeopardy / I Love Rocky Road / Like a Surgeon
White & Nerdy
Word Crimes
Amish Paradise
We All Have Cell Phones
The Saga Begins
Yoda
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.