Live Review: “Weird Al” Yankovic – Bigger & Weirder Tour – Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre

Charlotte NC – 26 July 2025

Weird Al has the high ground but it’s far far from over

You may have heard me mention it before, in my household we are big fans of the all-female pop-punk group The Linda Lindas especially my 9-year-old daughter. About a year ago they released a new song called “Yo Me Estreso” along with an accompanying music video. When I watched it for the first time I was like, hey that’s Weird Al playing the accordion, to which my daughter replied, who is Weird Al? I of course immediately told her to check out the videos for “Eat It”, “Fat”, “Like a Surgeon, and “I Love Rocky Road”, but she didn’t stop there, being a big Star Wars fan “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda” sealed the deal and we had a new Weird Al fan in the house.

No longer was I looking for which pop-punk or ska band was on tour, or if Olivia Rodrigo was touring, I was looking to see if Weird Al Yankovic was going on tour. Luckily for us not more than a few months later, the Bigger & Weirder 2025 Tour was announced and it was coming to our neck of the woods. Now you might be saying, that’s great, but Weird Al does not do punk songs. Maybe not, but he does his own thing without caring what people think which embodies the punk essence and he is playing Riot Fest this year, so that’s punk enough for me.

The opening act was Puddles Pity Party and after a quick google search I found to my slight disappointment, was a clown. Now I don’t hate clowns by any means, they are just not usually my cup of tea, but having a clown act open up for Weird Al made sense and fit the bill so I went in with an open mind.  

He’s act consisted of several musical numbers, some prop comedy, some audience participation, all in correspondence with the images on the large video screen on stage. Some of the show was a little tedious, some was a little bit absurd, and some was pretty hilarious. I had lower expectations for Puddles and was pleasantly surprised how much I laughed. Overall, I was left entertained and with a new appreciation for Kevin Costner.

After a brief break the stage lights dimmed, the video screen lit up, and the band started playing “Tacky”. Shown on the video wall a camera followed Weird Al as he sang and navigated his way from backstage, down a hallway, passing by Puddles with the classic pie to the face, to enter into the amphitheatre stage right and made his way to join the band and finish the song. As stated in the tour name of Bigger & Weirder, the band was no exception which was expanded by four new members to a total of eight for this tour including a Charlotte local Payton Rose Velligan joining on Guitar.

After one more song, the stage lights dimmed again and a solo spotlight lit up Al’s accordion raised up in his hand high like a trophy. This was followed by “Polkamania!” which is a polka medley mash up of hit pop songs like “Bad Guy”, “Shake It Off”, “Flowers”, “Vampire”, “Old Town Road” and many more. It was mentioned in some show notes that this tour was the first time these have been performed live and was a favorite for my daughter and I would guess of many of the youth that were in attendance. It turns out there was a total of six songs that were included as live debuts on this tour.

After a tour of swapping the song parodies for deep cuts and originals, this concert tour was a return to his classic formula of his hit song parodies so the multiple costume changes were expected. Having never seen Weird Al before I wondered how they would fill the time during the costume changes. The large video wall played video interludes that included clips from his pop culture references including shows like The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Scooby Doo, Batman, and also included many fake celebrity interviews and a few music video clips. These video fills made the costume change downtime fly by and were another show favorite for daughter.

The first costume change came as Al dress as Kurt Cobain for “Smells Like Nirvana” but it’s not just Al that gets to dress up. The entire band gets involved with cheerleaders with red pompoms, guitar/horn player Probyn Gregory dressed as the janitor complete with mop in hand. Immediately following this was another full band costume change for the Devo spoof “Dare to Be Stupid” complete with yellow hazmat jumpsuits and red energy domes for all.

The fun doesn’t just stay on the stage, Al ventures out in the audience to do a special number for some of the lucky ladies that happen to be seated near the aisle he goes out to. We were lucky to be only a few seats away for a bonus close up show.

With way too many popular parody hits under Al’s belt to fit into one show, he came up with another medley mash up that included parts of the forementioned hits like “Eat It”, “Like a Surgeon”, “I love Rocky Road”, and others like “Bedrock Anthem”, “My Bologna”, and “Ode to a Superhero”.

After a lengthier video break the beginning of the “Fat” video came on the big screen and to the Hawaiian shirt filled crowds screaming delight, out came Yankovic wearing his famous Fat suit for the first time in almost a decade. After “Fat” things cooled down a little bit with some less popular numbers and then a performance of “Ricky”, a parody of Toni Basil’s song “Micky” with band member Monique Donnelly dressed as Lucille Ball and sharing vocal duties. The main set ended with the popular “White & Nerdy” and “Amish Paradise” which of course included more major costume changes and a Segway scooter.

When the band re-emerged back on stage for the encore set, the costumes became a full-on Star Wars set complete with Stormtroopers, Scout Troopers, Darth Vader, a mechanized full size R2D2, while the other band members donned jedi or sith robes and Princess Leia like outfits. As you can guess that only could have meant that “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda” would be closing out the evening with “We All Have Cell Phones” thrown in. For both a Star Wars and Weird Al fan, it was a fantastic end to a great show and I now fully understand why Yankovic is the parody jedi master.

Before I sign off on this review, I wanted to mention how hot and humid it was this evening. The open-air amphitheatre was still well into the mid 90’s when the show started and just watching the show felt like we were in a sauna. The 65-year-old Yankovic looked unfazed by the heat as well as the rest of the band and I didn’t feel the extreme heat diminished their performance what so ever.