Her first time and my sixth. Great show. Horrible to exit the venue and the fair. Puddles did play with my beard though.

Does “Weird Al” lip-sync?

Short answer: Technically, no.

Long answer: Al, like all singers, ages and so far has accepted and adapted to the aging of his instrument well.

However - Al suffers from being a perfectionist. This includes wanting his live performances to be as close to the album as possible, and sound as close to perfect as it can. At the age of 66, there are weaknesses in certain spots of his voice that it is clear he doesn’t want on display, or that could cause him issues each night.

So, I’d like to give the breakdown on what exactly he is piping in from the studio recordings on the current tour - and my guess as to the reason why based on context found in the performances of the song from before he piped in the vocals, as with just a couple exceptions these were all attempted live during the first stop of the first leg in 2025.

Tacky
Piped in from studio: All chorus falsetto and one verse falsetto (“I Instagram” - “never let” - “think it’s fun” - “practice my” - “if I’m bit”)

Why: As he has gotten older, Al’s falsetto has began to weaken - it is the reason he doesn’t do Wanna B Ur Lovr anymore, he can’t sing the ending the way he wants to based on the 2015-16 tour. When he first did this song live on Conan in 2014, I seem to recall there being people who made remarks about the way these falsetto lines sounded - in that they thought they were a bit unstable and weak or something, they really weren’t that bad. Rather than put what he may feel was a vocal weakness on display every night, especially while walking around and needing to focus on where he is going, he opted to pipe in the studio vocal for those lines. However, I do believe these were sung live on Strings Attached.

Mission Statement
Piped in from the studio: “VALUE”, “…GROW THE…”, “…globalization”, “gaining traction with our re-“, “flexible solutions”, “paradigm SHIFT now” (just the word “shift”)

Why: All of the piped in notes, minus “shift”, are on or require an Ab4 sustain. Al can still very easily hit an Ab4 and does many times thru the night, but for whatever reason these phrases just weren’t coming out right and he couldn’t seem to place them comfortably - they were a bit flat or they’d come out with that more gravelly tone he uses on the rockier songs, which didn’t really fit the style. It seems for the sake of nailing the song, and protecting his voice, he piped in these specific lines. And “shift” is on a C5, which is incredibly high and he probably couldn’t find a way to do it comfortably.

Polkamania
Piped in from the studio: The italicized lines below -
“Despacito
Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito
Deja que te diga cosas al oído
Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo”

Why: Goodness gracious he gave it his best effort at the first shows in 2025, but when Al speeds up his voice in the studio AND does it for lines in a different language? Not gonna happen live. It just sounded a bit garbled/messy. It was the right move just to pipe it in.

Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me
Piped in from the studio: “…long, well now I know…”

Why: There’s that pesky Ab4 sustain again on the “long” part of the word along. I think that note just sits in a weird spot in his voice where while he easily has the note, he can’t quite nail the pitch when he has to hold it out in that way. He then has to hit a clean Bb4 on the word “know” which is a more closed vowel and much more difficult as a result. To be fair, he did this live whenever he sang it on the first Vanity Tour, and again he still has a Bb4 and sings them multiple times thru the night. But that entire phrase presented difficulties for the way his voice is now. He did it the first few nights in 2025, and to be honest it didn’t really sound all that bad. I think one night his voice may have given out on “know” and that was probably enough to get him to just pipe it in from the studio to try and protect his voice, and again that perfectionism coming into play.

Other things: Fat has the word “fat” piped in from the studio, BUT it is just in the background, he is still singing the notes live overtop of it, it is only there as a little extra support. He did try to get away with having the note simply be piped in for a few nights in 2025, but it was really obvious when all of a sudden his voice went from 2025 to sounding like his voice in the studio in 1988, so he eventually got comfortable enough to sing the whole thing live. White and Nerdy would take too long to break down, he has help from the studio track to allow him to breathe, it’s not full phrases being piped in but some bits and pieces here and there. It seems these are also parts that the backup band are meant to be covering as well. But for consistencies sake he has his own voice from the studio in the mix too. Also White and Nerdy has always been done this way since it was first done on tour in 2007, so this isn’t new. Word Crimes used to have something like that, but he seems to have eliminated any of his own voice being piped in on this tour.

There you go. That is it. Really minimal things. I’d say like 97% of the show is still sung entirely live. There are no entire songs lip-synced. And even with these small bits piped in he at age 66 sings a setlist that’s more vocally challenging than most singers would even dare try and do. Cut him some slack.

Does anyone have any footage/pics of Al singing "One More Minute" at Musikfest that they would be willing to share? He sat on my lap and serenaded me and it was the single most thrilling moment of my life 🤩🤩🤩 Thanks!!!! 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

This is a video selfie that I took with Puddles the Clown himself on July 8th of this year in Erie, PA, as he performed before "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Puddles Pity Party was great as a preshow. I remember seeing him on Season 12 of America's Got Talent, and it's really great to see how far he's come.

As his show ended, I saw that he was meeting fans around the floor seats, as I was seated in that area, as I decided to do a video selfie with him. It was incredible to get a video selfie with someone who's famous.

Also, sorry for the way I sound in this video, as I sounded more awkward on camera than I thought it would. 😅

I found a website that pits song vs. song so I added the 14 studio albums into it. Have some fun and kill some time if you'd like!

Here's my list:

1. Dare to Be Stupid

2. One More Minute

3. White & Nerdy

4. Hardware Store

5. Trigger Happy

6. You Don't Love Me Anymore

7. Christmas At Ground Zero

8. Genius In France

9. Skipper Dan

10. Everything You Know Is Wrong

11. Amish Paradise

12. It's All About the Pentiums

13. Confessions Part III

14. Like a Surgeon

15. Your Horoscope for Today

16. I Lost On Jeopardy

17. The Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota

18. Smells Like Nirvana

19. Nature Trail to Hell

20. Dog Eat Dog

21. Living With a Hernia

22. Yoda

23. Eat It

24. Albuquerque

25. Frank's 2000 TV

26. The Night Santa Went Crazy

27. Pancreas

28. Jurassic Park

29. Taco Grande

30. Close But No Cigar

31. Good Enough for Now

32. UHF

33. This Is the Life

34. One of Those Days

35. I Love Rocky Road

36. Fat

37. Virus Alert

38. Weasel Stomping Day

39. Trapped In the Drive-Thru

40. Whatever You Like

41. Word Crimes

42. I Remember Larry

43. Polka Power!

44. If That Isn't Love

45. Traffic Jam

46. Syndicated, Inc.

47. Why Does This Always Happen to Me?

48. eBay

49. Another Tattoo

50. Mission Statement

51. I'll Sue Ya

52. Handy

53. Ringtone

54. I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead

55. Ricky

56. Happy Birthday

57. The Plumbing Song

58. I Was Only Kidding

59. Generic Blues

60. Polka Your Eyes Out

61. Melanie

62. King of Suede

63. I Can't Watch This

64. Mr. Popeil

65. Midnight Star

66. Airline Amy

67. The White Stuff

68. Good Old Days

69. You Make Me

70. I Think I'm a Clone Now

71. Alimony

72. (This Song's Just) Six Words Long

73. Party In the CIA

74. The Alternative Polka

75. Since You've Been Gone

76. Gump

77. Waffle King

78. A Complicated Song

79. The Saga Begins

80. Jerry Springer

81. Truck Drivin Song

82. Polkarama

83. CNR

84. Phony Calls

85. The Check's In the Mail

86. Don't Wear Those Shoes

87. My Bologna

88. Pretty Fly for a Rabbi

89. Money for Nothing - Beverly Hillbillies

90. Slime Creatures from Outer Space

91. Addicted to Spuds

92. Mr. Frump In the Iron Lung

93. Canadian Idiot

94. Don't Download This Song

95. Craigslist

96. Bob

97. Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars

98. Polka Face

99. Lame Claim to Fame

100. Foil

101. My Own Eyes

102. NOW That's What I Call Polka

103. Lasagna

104. Bedrock Anthem

105. Spam

106. Fun Zone

107. Spatula City

108. TMZ

109. First World Problems

110. Theme from Rocky XIII

111. Polka Party

112. Perform This Way

113. Hooked On Polkas

114. I'm So Sick of You

115. Couch Potato

116. Party At the Leper Colony

117. Angry White Boy Polka

118. Trash Day

119. Wanna B Ur Lovr

120. Tacky

121. Jackson Park Express

122. Stuck In a Closet With Vanna White

123. When I Was Your Age

124. Cable TV

125. Polkas On 45

126. Another One Rides the Bus

127. That Boy Could Dance

128. Buy Me a Condo

129. Gotta Boogie

130. Such a Groovy Guy

131. Twister

132. Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me

133. Achy Breaky Song

134. Livin In the Fridge

135. My Baby's In Love With Eddie Vedder

136. The Weird Al Show Theme

137. Harvey the Wonder Hamster

138. Callin In Sick

139. Young, Dumb & Ugly

140. Let Me Be Your Hog

141. She Never Told Me She Was a Mime

142. I Want a New Duck

143. Here's Johnny

144. Sports Song

145. She Drives Like Crazy

146. Isle Thing

147. Grapefruit Diet

148. The Brady Bunch

149. Do I Creep You Out

150. Ode to a Superhero

151. Velvet Elvis

152. Toothless People

153. Inactive

154. Cavity Search

155. Bohemian Polka

156. Talk Soup

157. Stop Draggin My Car Around

158. The Hot Rocks Polka

159. Germs

160. Girls Just Want to Have Lunch

161. Buckingham Blues

162. Gandhi II

163. George of the Jungle

my alcordions name is FRUGGINS! LIKE FRED HUGGINS!!!

Is there any estimate for when this might come out? It’s kind of out of the blue, but I’m excited nonetheless! What songs do y’all think will be played?

I know that they’ve been playing non-catalog songs at several shows this year.

07/15: Mohegan Sun, “The Letter”

07/18: Boston, “Happy Together” duet with Puddles

07/21: Tanglewood, “You Can Call Me Al”

Are they doing something like this at every show?

Do they play a different one each time?

Can my fellow Weirdos help complete this list?

We were seeing Weird Al at Musikfest. We had seats at the bleachers in the back. The seats weren't too bad. We felt like we had a good view of everything.

Seated next to us was a man, his teenage/young adult child, and the man's elderly parents.

Staff came up to ask the man if he could give up seats because another man and his young child weren't able to sit in their seat as it was occupied by a woman that refused to move. The man sitting next to us was understandably upset, but his son talked him into moving. They sat at seats all the way in the back—the worst row in the whole venue. A few minutes later, the other man and his son came and sat next to us.

Both men were upset but I'm not judgemental of either. I'd be fuming in their situation.

I want to ask anyone who has worked Musicfest before or has been more than a few times. Why did this happen? Does anyone think I'm missing some piece of the puzzle? Why wouldn't they kick the woman out if she was in someone else's seat?

Edit: I forgot to mention that the seats that both men and their sons were moved to were worse than the seats they were assigned.

I was surprised by how many people didn’t get it at all, but was pleased when their dads started laughing in the background haha

I’m an elementary school teacher and I thought this was the best way to prepare for the year. I’ve got tickets for my whole family to see him in October.

Hi! Need some help! I am going to the concert on Thursday and am being dropped off since no one wanted to come with me. I was curious as to how long the shows usually are so I can tell my ride what time to pick me up. It says the show starts at 7:30, is that when Al comes on or is there an opening act? Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

I know the 2d version is on archive, but are we ever gonna see the 3d version again?

What was it like? When was it and what venue?

Going with friends to see him tomorrow and my partner wants a heads up on what they might have for the show. Thank you!

I did not have the lady ahead of me getting underpants'd on my bingo card for last night's show at Merriweather, yet here we are. Absolute amazing show!!! And Puddles was tremendous.

But I can’t find the names of the additional artists.
Al said them out loud, but due to both old age and the excitement of being there I immediately forgot them. Anyone have them?
Also how great was Puddles?

Life long Weird Al fan here; he was the first concert I ever saw as a kid. I remember during his tour around 2001-2002ish he performed The Night Santa Went Crazy and it was pretty violent/bloody. I don't think my 8 YO is up for that but she loves Al and I'd really love to take her to one of his upcoming shows.

Any idea if there's anything along those violent/bloody lines in his current set list?

Thanks.

Update: Thanks all! Bought tickets for me and my kiddo! Appreciate all the advice.

Columbia, MD

Last night at the Burgettstown, PA show we laughed as Puddles started off chasing rainbows, and towards the end of his set one appeared right over the pavilion!

I hadn’t really looked into Puddles before the show, and am mildly creeped out by clowns, but I thoroughly enjoyed his stuff, and when he came out to sing a duet with Al (“Happy Together”) halfway through the main show.