Customer Reviews

Weird Al Yankovic - Live

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For those who have not been to a Weird Al concert...this is the closest you can get without actually BEING there. For those who HAVE been to one of his concerts (like myself)...this will be a great reminder of what it was like! Al and his band are top notch professional musicians...and it all comes through on this video! He performes songs from his new album, like "Saga Begins" and "Germs" as well as classics, like "Yoda" and "Dare to Be Stupid". The two videos from his current album "Running With Scissors" - which follow the concert portion of the video - are an added bonus. Taken together...its "Weird Al" at his best...performing live!

Weird Al Yankovic live, comes off just as fun as one of his movies or songs would. This DVD is a live recording of one of his concerts that he had after the release of his Running with Scissors album.

The best part is that the concert isn't just of the songs that were on that latest album, but full of many of his old favorites that many Weird Al fans have been hooked on for years. Dare to Be Stupid, Amish Paradise, Like a Surgeon as well as newer hits like The Saga Begins and All about the Pentiums.

A few of the songs are interesting to note .. like Yoda for instance which is a song about Luke Skywalkers experiences with Yoda, is sung like you would usualy hear it but it suddenly will go into a weird chant that he has done at various times during his concerts. Just out of nowhere he starts to go into it and it's pretty impressive if not wacky to watch the whole band suddenly go into a trance like that. And also a good thing to note is the song the Night Santa Went Crazy has an alternate line that you won't hear in the song recorded on tape (won't give it away but any true Al fan should know already). I also enjoyed his compilation song which was a mixture of a lot of his old songs all in one huge melody. Some of the song would be sung and Al would whip on a new costume to fit the song he is about to sing and go right into it without pausing.

I really can't say enough how great this concert really is. There is even subtitles you can turn on if you want to sing along with it and its just a thril to see all the people having a great time and all the effort and thought that Al seems to put into putting on the show. I'm surprised they took this long to put his concert onto tape or DVD. It really is one of the best and most fun I have ever watched.

Bonus materials include the two music videos from Running with Scissors which are great in itself. And some funny 50'esque black and white shorts that he did for his AlTV specials some time back.

Bottom line, if you think you have heard and seen Al , you aint seen nothing yet until you have seen him live! You are definitely missing out if you don't have this already. You won't be sorry getting this. Its a great laugh and a lot of fun all the way through.

Wow, how can you compress a whole Weird Al show into one tape? Well, VH-1 has tried and has come as close as you can without having the bubbles in your hair. (If you say "huh? ", then you haven't been to a Weird Al experience or seen the tape.

Must own for everyone who loves Al.

One feature really makes this DVD worth buying: It includes the video for "The Saga Begins".

It also includes the video for "All About the Pentiums", but who cares? I've been looking for the "saga Begins" video ever since they took it off the web, and now I finally have it again.

As to the performance, I've got to say that Weird Al and his band are among the most versatile musicians in the world, and it's only because of their chosen idiom that they don't get the respect they deserve. From a musical standpoint, this DVD is outstanding.

My one complaint about the performance is that the venue was really strange. It looked almost like an oversized school auditorium, and the audience was almost as well lit as the stage. Plus, the audience was about 50% young boys. As a result, I didn't get the real "rock concert" concert feel I would have liked.

One other DVD feature I really liked was the two hysterical mock documentaries ("Germs and You", and "Crimes of Carelessness"), assembled from old educational films. The look and sound of the shorts perfectly matched the old 16mm educational films I used to watch in school as a child, while the subject matter was.... well... different.

This is the single greatest piece of multimedia anyone could ever own! The parodies are simply magnificent, as is Al's performance. Having done some (semi)-professional singing of my own, it's nice to see an artist who actually seems to be enjoying his music and time spent with his enraptured fans, as opposed to one with a pained and/or indifferent expression that conveys he can't wait to get off the stage and back to spending his wads of cash! I have only seen the DVD once at a friend's house (I myself own the VHS and have only watched it about a thousand times) and didn't notice the stoppage at the end of "Teen Spirit", not to say that it isn't there; I simply failed to make note of it. I must comment on the accusation of a lip-synched performance in a previous review, however. Al prides himself on NEVER lip-synching to his own songs. You can tell on some parts of the concert where his voice catches slightly and such, little things that prove it's all real. As for the perfect singing while writhing around, I'll have you know that I was at a Weird Al concert where he wracked himself up on a gate (outdoor theatre) trying to get into the audience for "One More Minute" and he only missed a beat (enough to tell that it was live, but also to prove he has great voice control even while in compromising positions and makes a quick recovery)! Well, I've wasted enough of you're time already; why are you still reading this review instead of filling out the order form? You HAVE to get this DVD (yeah, I'm talking to YOU, buddy). Keep the spirit of Al alive, and don't besmirch his good name with false accusations of (*shudders*) lip-synching. The council rests, Your Honor...

If you went to the concert and wondered how well they would be able to catch the show on video, rest assured that this tape is almost as good as the concert. Maybe even a little better if you weren't close enough to see Al's face. If you saw the VH-1 special on TV and wondered if you should spend the money for just a few more songs, SPEND THE MONEY! The video is edited differently from the aired show and shows more of Al's interaction with the audience and how everyone sings along (if you've been to one of his concerts you know what I mean). Performance-wise Al and the band are incredible. Hotspots: It's all about the Pentiums, Amish Paradise, The Night Santa went Crazy, and the surprise ending to Yoda.

I've been to a real Weird Al concert, and this is almost as good. It's also exciting because of the appearance made by Al's parents. It includes songs like Germs, Smells Like Nirvana, part of the medley, Amish Paradise, Yoda and a lot more. The video also features the "Yoda Chant", a chant sung at the end of Yoda. To sum it up, this video POLKAS!

This Al tape is a very good representation of what to expect in a "Weird Al" concert, which are very intense and high rated. It includes all of Al's hits, done Live on stage. He dresses up in costumes of the people he parodies, and does a few in his regular hawaiian shirt outfit. Regardless of what he wears, this is a great video, and I reccomend it to ANYONE who likes Weird AL the slightest bit, because you won't be dissapointed!

Is it possible for a singer/musician and his back-up band to sound so good, that you can't make a distinction between their CD and their live performance? YES!

And Weird Al and his band do this. This video is an incredible testiment to how talented Weird Al truly is. In fact, he's got more raw talent in his little (accordian playing - which, as a ragin cajun and a fan of zydeco, I dig!) finger than most mainstream artists with platnium records out the wazoo have.

He is funny, irreverant and just a bit zany (ok, maybe totally zany). This is the perfect video to watch at the end of a hard day at work. I was still laughing hours later.

The live versions of his songs are fantastic, the musicians in his band are tighter than any live performing band I've seen in years, and from the frequent camera shots into the audience show, virtualy everyone in the sold out venue knows every word to every song. Wow.

Buy this video, you WILL NOT be disappointed.

What would "Weird Al" Yankovic be like "live"? I mean, when you are known for doing musical parodies and your music videos often have you dressed up like somebody else, how does this translate into a concert? What little I had seen of Weird Al on stage on MTV and such really gave me no indication of what a full assault on stage would be like. That is why "'Weird Al' Yankovic: Live!" exists. So that those of us who live so far off the beaten path that very few "BIG NAMES" actually make it to a local venue can confirm that they have been missing fun.

His 90-minute concert is from a 2000 tour, which followed the release the previous year of "Running With Scissors." Seven of the dozen songs from that album make it into the show, and they are mostly from the great "first side" of the CD and not from the downhill slide that follows "It's All About the Pentiums" on the "second side" as the last three tracks go down the drain. The first part of the concert is fairly straightforward. Mom and Dad Yankovic introduce their boy he jumps right into "Gump." Then he puts on the old accordion and launches into "Polka Power," "Jerry Springer," and "My Baby is in Love With Eddie Vedder." But then it starts to "snow," so Al has an excuse to pull "The Night Santa Went Crazy" out of the vault.

This sets up the next part of the evening's festivities as Al and the band don costumes to do "Dare to Be Stupid," "It's All About the Pentiums," "Germs," and "One More Minute." Then we get an updated parody of "Like a Surgeon," where the music is suddenly played with a decidedly Middle Eastern flavor and the infamous Madonna conical breast costume makes a return. But with the music I wonder if Weird Al is somehow working in a takeoff on Robert Plant and Jimmy Page's "Un-Led-ed" MTV special. There are layers here people, lots of layers. Plus Al sings hoping around on one leg with the other tucked behind his head. You think Madonna can do that?

If you are worried that Yankovic is not going to do your favorite song he tries to solve that in the Medley section, which works in "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi," "Another One Rides the Bus," "Rocky Road," "That Achy-Breaky Song," "Jurassic Park," "Grapefruit Diet" (darn, he worked it in), "I Lost on Jeopardy," and "Eat It." Then we are back to a big finish with more tunes in costume, namely "Smells Like Nirvana" (wow, he does it like nothing happened), "Bedrock Anthem," "Amish Paradise," and then after the intro from the video to allow the ultimate costume change, "Fat." If you know the "Running With Scissors" album then you know what the encore is going to be, namely "The Saga Begins," but then as a treat he tacks on "Yoda," which makes perfect sense.

Some clips from his videos work their way in (Don Pardo's "You're a complete loser!" speech and that wonderful moment when the T-Rex decapitates Barney). The music videos for "The Saga Begins" and "It's All About the Pentiums" are included in the special features, which makes sense since they both are from the "Running with Scissors" album, but if you already have "'Weird Al' Yankovic: The Ultimate Video Collection" (hand raised). There are some photographs to look at and credits, but then for a final taste of insanity there are a pair of "Educational Films." You know as soon as you click on this you are in trouble and it turns out to be double-trouble with the shorts "Crimes of Carelessness" and "Germs and You." "Hemo the Magnificent" and "Duck and Cover" were never like this.

Yes, it would be nice if there were more polka numbers, but you can really only do one of those in a concert the same way you can only have one on a "Weird Al" album. Yankovic puts a lot of energey into his concert, and once again I am struck by how good of a singer he is, not only in terms of his ability to imitate the vocal styles of such diverse performers as Kurt Cobain and Don McLean, but just how strong of a voice he has. For that matter, the boys in the band are not just going through the motions, which certainly indicates how far Yankovic has gotten from the early days when it was him on accordion and John "Bermuda" Schwartz banging away on anything but a real drum set. The best thing is that you know going in whether you are going to love "'Weird Al' Yankovic: Live!" or not, so you probably did not even bother reading this far and are already up to the third chapter of the concert.