Cannery Casino
Las Vegas, NV
September 10, 2011
The Cannery was a bit farther from the Las Vegas Strip than I thought, so in retrospect, it might have just been worth it to rent a car for that day, but we took the taxi over. I'm sure the cabbie was happy for the fare.
We passed a billboard advertising the "Weird Al" Yankovic concert on the way over, but I was too late getting my camera out to get a decent picture. But once we arrived at the casino, there was a huge billboard sized poster advertising the concert, and Al's name in large letters out front.
Once we got inside we went to go pick up our tickets and I was informed we had front row tickets, which was a really nice surprise as I never even got any kind of confirmation from the venue when I ordered my tickets many many months ago.
Immediately after getting our tickets, we ran into Helen at the ticket counter. The three of us hit the merchandise booth, where I picked up the two new shirts and got new trading cards. I was also informed that the blister packs and boxed sets now contain 12 new cards consisting of the songs from the new album.
Jackie and I left to get something to eat as our bodies were in that weird time where you're kind of halfway adjusted to the time change, but your eating schedule is still all messed up. On the way over we noticed that my favorite slot machine game, Lucky Larry's Lobstermania now has a sequel. I did notice there were a lot fewer Lucky Larry's Lobstermania machines arpund than usual, so it appears they are slowly phasing it out. The new game has a few new features and there is a progressive and the bonuses values appear to be higher.
After a quick pizza dinner we headed inside and met up with Shelley, Alicia, Kelley, Peggy from Santa Barbara, and Helen again, who through some good fortune was sitting right next to us. Even though we were so far from home and so far from our normal concert travel locations, it was nice to see a lot of familiar faces there. As Helen noted, you can go to a concert alone, but you'll always be among people you know.
The venue was interesting in that it was half inside and half outside, and some hotel rooms had a view of the stage. I noticed a few people stick their heads out the windows. If you stay there, you better hope you like the band that's performing, or it could be a bad nights sleep for you.
The video screens were off the sides of the stage, so from where we were sitting, we couldn't see them very well, which was a shame because I really was looking forward to seeing the "Polka Face" video again. "Frank's 2000" TV" Was back in the setlist, and "You Make Me" and "You Don't Love Me Anymore" were cut. We were treated to a drum solo and drum solo reprise by Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz.
"Skipper Dan" had a slight CB malfunction so we missed the first announcement, but it came on after that. Also having an unobstructed view of the stage I really saw how skinny Al's legs are. "Party In The CIA" had some nice coordinated hand motions. Jim West was almost directly in front of us, so I was watching him a lot during this song and throughout the show. The streamers for "Canadian Idiot" shot directly into the lighting rig and most of them stayed hanging throughout the show.
During "Wanna B Ur Lovr" Al saw a friend in the front row and called her by name, Sara, during the song. Steve Jay appeared to be haivng some difficulties with the cord on his bass guitar, as he changed it out for another midway through the song. Al also knocked over one of his bass guitars with his tail feathers during "Perform This Way." Also, Steve's microphone cord briefly got tangled in one of the bass guitar stands during "White & Nerdy." Nothing major that affected the show or anything, but I guess it was his turn for technical difficulties or something.
Six stormtroopers, Darth Vader, and R2D2 came out for "The Saga Begins" and for "Yoda" they tuned on some lights in the backdrop that looked like stars. It looked really cool throughout the performance.
After the show, I met up with Vikki, Devin, Jack and Jordan and we reminisced over some pictures about my many trips to California where Vikki generously chauffered me all over the state.
Bermuda came out and we chatted for a while. I also engaged in some conversation with Al about the new blu ray, and did some reminiscing about Hawaii with Jim. The atmosphere was very relazed after the show and everyone seemed excited to be back on the road again.
We headed out to the buses to say goodbye to Vikki, Shelley, Alicia, and Kelley, and ended up hanging around longer than we expected. It started raining so we took that as the cue to leave and cut through the hotel to avoid the rain. There was a small group of people in there waiting out the rain who took an interest in my tattoos.
On the way out, we ran into Tara Lyn, and Bermuda again who filled us in a little on the progress of the coffee table book. It stopped raining and we then caught a taxi back to The Strip.
More Pictures!!!
You can click on the highlighted words above and below to see more concert photos.