Spreading joy and weirdness across the country again this summer, the legendary rock parodist Weird Al Yankovic and his loyal, supporting band visited Grand Rapids early last month for another installment of his gigantic Bigger and Weirder Tour at the newly opened Acrisure Amphitheater.
Yankovic has been on the road since last spring on this trek, performing the same well-rehearsed, choreographed, and costumed "latest and greatest hits" show to rave reviews from longtime fans and first-timers alike. The tour stopped through Traverse City, Clarkston, and Kalamazoo already last year, and following the Grand Rapids performance, also hit the DOW Event Center in Saginaw. Dates are currently scheduled through the end of October, which will make it nearly two straight years of playing the same two hour show every one-to-three days (aside from the seasonal winter break), in addition to traveling in order to do so. It's unbelievable Al and the band could endure such a rhythm, but, as Metallica would also remind us, they are seasoned pros, and this is simply what they do.
Due to the carefully timed costume and set changes throughout the show, the set list cannot change from night-to-night, as Yankovic did throughout his recent "vanity tour" runs of deep cuts and non-hits. In spite of fair warning in the title, advertising, and promotion of that tour, some fans attended those shows and were disappointed the hits were not featured, especially those seeing Al for the first time. The Bigger and Weirder Tour almost feels like the obligatory follow-up, where Yankovic and the band got to "play what they wanted" for a few years and now feel they have to make-up for their self-indulgence by staging the opposite, a greatest hits set with a handful of newer songs produced for TV and film projects over the past few years that will leave everyone in the crowd satisfied.
Rather than reviewing the show (which we already did last summer when they played Pine Knob), I wanted to consider how this meticulously planned show holds up to more than one viewing. First, comparing Clarkston to Grand Rapids, the main show was virtually identical. This extremely well-rehearsed set touches on nearly all of Yankovic's most successful and popular songs, including "Smells Like Nirvana," "Dare to Be Stupid," "Amish Paradise," "Fat," "White & Nerdy," and the double Star Wars encore of "The Saga Begins" and "Yoda," complete with costumed fans blanketing the stage. He even works a bit of "Eat It" into the medley section of the concert. The structure of the show is similar to one that Al has used since 1996 where video montages and comically edited TV clips are shown between some songs to allow the band to change costumes to accommodate certain songs, mainly to match imagery from the associated music videos (another of the many elements that helped Yankovic establish his brand in the early days of MTV). Jim West (guitar) and Steve Jay (bass), both with the band since 1983, and Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, on drums since 1980, continue to back Yankovic superbly, matching the sounds and styles of a different artist or player on every song. Missing from this year's tour is longtime keyboardist Ruben Valtierra, with the band since 1996, who has not left the group but is currently out for personal reasons. Joining the main band are five additional musicians jumping in on guitar, vocals, horns, and percussion in various combinations, adding more depth to the music, more engagement to the performances, and create a sound comparable to Dweezil Zappa's longtime tribute tours featuring the music of his late father.
Opening the show since the tour began last year is the creative musician/performance artist Puddles the Clown, billed here as Puddles Pity Party. Performing a variety of cover songs and mash-ups, with no context, in a Pierrot clown costume comes across as more confusing and strange than funny at first, but once Puddles displays his vocal abilities and the comically sad angle of his clown character, his show ends up being somewhat lighthearted in an ironic way. His 2026 opening set is also very similar to the one he performed last year, but the mash-up of Metallica and Celine Dion songs has been replaced by a blend of Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure" with Idina Menzel's "Let It Go" from the animated film Frozen, which was debatably better received in Grand Rapids compared to the former mash-up in Clarkston. Puddles also appears one or more times in cameo during Yankovic's set, adding a bit more continuity for those who are present to view the entire show.
Seeing a concert on this tour more than once could go one of several ways depending on the viewer. The show itself is clearly geared toward first timers and fans who may have not seen Yankovic live in several years (or decades) and does a great job summarizing his career and catalog of hits. Seeing the show twice as a newbie would be fun but more so with more time between the shows (as opposed to seeing two stops on the tour in a row). Those who have seen Yankovic several times in the past are not getting a ton of new material on this tour, but even the additions of "Polkamania," "It's My World," and "Now You Know" make the show worth catching at least once, and I'm not sure it's ever possible to grow tired of the vocal freak-out at the end of "Yoda," so that's an added bonus. Unlike many other rock groups, who rotate new and old songs in and out of their shows monthly or even nightly in some cases, the lack of Yankovic's ability to do that with this type of show brings diminished returns for repeat viewers. Certainly, the occasion for attending more than once, or the person or group with whom you're attending, also affects the overall experience, but based solely on the show itself, hardcore fans are better off hoping for another deep cuts tour than they are attending Bigger and Weirder more than once.
Puddles Pity Party (7/3/26) set list:
I'm Always Chasing Rainbows (Harry Carroll)
Come Cry with Me (Glyn Styler)
Who Wants to Help the Clown? (interlude)
Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne) / Message in a Bottle (The Police)
America Today
Who Wants to Help the Clown? (interlude)
Estoy sentando aqui (Los Lobos)
Come on up to the House (Tom Waits)
In the End
Stairway to Gilligan's Island (Little Roger and The Goosebumps)
Who Wants to Help the Clown? (interlude)
Under Pressure (Queen) / Let It Go (Idina Menzel)
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Weird Al Yankovic (7/3/26) set list:
Fun Zone (intro tape)
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Channel Hopping (intro video)
Tacky
Mission Statement
Polkamania!
Drum solo (jam)
Everything You Know Is Wrong
One More Minute
Another One Rides the Bus (video interlude)
Smells Like Nirvana
Dare to Be Stupid
Medley: Party in the C.I.A./It's All About the Pentiums/Bedrock Anthem/My Bologna/Ode to a Superhero/I Love Rocky Road/Eat It/Like a Surgeon/Word Crimes/Canadian Idiot
Fat
It's My World
Captain Underpants Theme Song
Now You Know
You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon)
Skipper Dan
Drum solo (reprise) (jam)
eBay
Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me
White & Nerdy
Amish Paradise
Band Intros (outro jam)
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Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 (Bach)
We All Have Cell Phones
The Saga Begins
Charge! (Tommy Walker)
Yoda
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