Konocti Field Amphitheatre
Kelseyville, CA
June 20, 2003
About all we did on the day of the concert was drive. And drive. And drive. And just for something different, we did a little driving. It was a long drive from Anaheim to Kelseyville. We hit a little traffic leaving the Los Angeles area when we left at about 7:30 A.M., but it was an open road after that. We passed Cid and Kevin on the highway, waved to each other, and then they sped off ahead of us.
Once we neared San Francisco, we hit some more traffic, and were going on a lot of smaller roads. We were going through a lot of small scenic towns and climbing up mountains on thin, very winding roads. Overall it was a pretty drive, and I got to basically see a little bit of everything.
We pulled into the parking lot literally about 10 minutes before the show was scheduled to start. We had cut it so close, that we didn't have time for dinner. Turns out we could have stopped, but of course, we didn't know at the time.
On the way to my seat, I ran into Helen (Orthography Enthusiast). We talked for a few minutes and I showed my tattoos to a couple of her friends. Kevin and Cid were there already and said they had been there for about half an hour. They were sitting in the front row with Carole, directly in front of us. Linda (Squirrelygirl) was there as well, but I'm not sure where she ended up sitting. Jordan and I grabbed some dinner from the snack bar, and then chatted with everyone.
It was cold and extremely windy there, and since it was an outdoor venue, we felt it. In fact, it was so windy that the covering above the stage had blown away. All that remained was a small patch of it, off the side. The video screen collapsed as the stage crew was setting it up, and the lights were swinging so much that we expected them to come crashing down and wipe out the first row.
The opening act was a local comedian, and he was extremely funny. He was well liked by the crowd, and had some really good laugh out loud stuff. After the comedian came out, an announcement was made that because of the high winds, the starting time would be delayed while they worked out some details. The "Weird Al" Yankovic portion of the show didn't end up starting until about 9:00, over two hours after it's scheduled starting time.
The setlist was extremely shortened, and had a make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel to it. Al's hair was blowing all over the place, and Jim West was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up the entire show.
There were no video clips, so the show opened immediately with "Couch Potato" in full costume. The jacket and hood were taken off and a Hawaiian shirt was put on over the black t-shirt and Al went straight into "Angry White Boy Polka," followed by "Party At The Leper Colony," "Your Horoscope For Today," and "A Complicated Song."
Al went straight into "Wanna B Ur Lovr" in a Hawaiian shirt, which was a lot of fun to see. It turned out to be comical for all the wrong reasons. The outfit Al wears for that song really adds a lot to the performance.
In between songs, whenever Al needed to buy some time, or the crew to get caught up, Al called for a drum solo, or a guitar solo, or a bass solo, and we were even treated to a rare bass solo reprise. And oddly, during both bass solos, Steve Jay actually played some cool serious music instead of doing some gag solo like he usually does.
Al skipped ahead in the setlist to "Melanie" and "One More Minute," followed by the medley. Al left the bandana he used as part of the "Beverly Hillbillies/Money For Nothing" costume for most of the medley to keep his hair out of his face.
After the medley, Al left the stage for the first time and Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz took over the microphone from behind his drums. He revived the Hernia Rap. There were a lot of new additions to it since I had last heard it, the funniest being Malcolm In The Middle. I later found out that Jon printed it out moments before going on stage, and that was the first time he read through it, so he wasn't even sure what was coming.
Al emerged and did "Fat" in the suit. They had planned to do an encore, and the fans wanted one, but the venue wouldn't allow it. There was a 10:00 curfew time and they had already gone over.
It was pretty obvious that Al and the band weren't coming out to greet the few fans that stuck around, so we got directions to a hotel from Cid and Kevin and they left. I had some business to handle for Weird Al Star Fund so we were brought to a room behind the stage to get out of the cold and told that Al would be out in a little bit.
Jon was there, but he ran off to do something just as people were coming in. Rubén Valtierra was there as well. He was entertaining some young kids. I didn't get to talk to him. Jon came back shortly and came over and talked to us about the tour and show. He told us about some of the technical difficulties they were having that weren't apparent to the audience and we talked a little bit about the new website design and some other stuff that Jon had designed for the tour, and Jon hinted about a Nickelodeon special and a special guest that would be at the San Luis Obispo show.
Jon had to run again, and he left just as Al arrived. Al was happy to see me. He apologized and said, "I'm sorry you had to see that. I hope you didn't come out here just for that show." which was really nice of him to care. I talked to him about the star campaign, and he said, "I heard about that. That's great." and gave us the blessing to go ahead with it and promised to give the letter we had to Jay Levey to finalize the permissions we needed.
I took a gangsta picture with Al, and Vikki gave Al a gift for Nina and he really liked it. Jordan and Vikki took some pictures with Al and then we left to go try to find the hotel and hope they had a room available. We were tired and relieved that we could sleep in the next morning.
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