Mann Music Center
Philadelphia, PA
July 19, 2003
Jackie came over at about 3:00 and we left at about 3:30 to pick up Brittany. I planned a lot of extra travel time because I was afraid of traffic. There was some traffic, an accident, and police activity on the NJ Turnpike, but not too bad, and we still got there by 6:45. It was an expensive drive though, as just about every road we had to take was a toll road. I'll think again before driving to Philly for another show, or at least better factor in the money it will cost for tolls before making that decision.
Getting there a little early gave us some time to hang out. Despite the fact that they checked just about everybody who came in, I walked right in with my camera and no one said anything. As we walked in, the first thing we saw was the merchandise booth. We paused in front of it, and Mike Minnick came over and introduced himself and said hello. He's as much of a nice guy in person as his posts are on the Forum. I enjoyed hanging out with him. We ended up hanging out by the merchandise booth with Mike and others for basically an hour.
I bought Brittany a hot dog and Jackie bought some shirts, and then I heard another voice calling me. It was Insane Ian. I chatted a little with him about the tribute album, tooks some pics, and then I heard another voice calling me. It was Dana. It felt like everywhere I turned I was meeting people I had only talked with online. Dana was as nice in person as she is in e-mails as well, and it was nice to finally meet her. Sharon and Tara Lyn were there as well, and soon our little group by the merchandise booth grew to a big group.
Eventually everyone split for their seats. Our seats were about row six, with a raised walkway and a row of seats in between the raised walkway and our row. The sound wasn't all that great there, but after a few songs, the sound started to get a liitle better and I was able to adjust.
The opening comedian was a local and it was obvous that he toned down his act for the age of the audience. There was some funny stuff, and he picked on Sharon who was sitting in the front row for a little bit. There was a brief intermission, and then "Fun Zone" started playing and everyone was more than ready to see "Weird Al" Yankovic.
The audience was really into it. The venue was covered, but open air, and there were a lot of empty seats in the back, but there were still a lot of people there. The setlist was the same as the last set of shows. Before "Party At The Leper Colony," Al mentioned how he surveyed a small group of people and they wanted to hear a song about leprosy. The way the lighting was hitting Jim West during some of the early songs made him look, and there's no way to put this kindly, extremely constipated. That made Brittany and I laugh a lot during those songs.
A couple cues were late, so to fill the dead time, right before "You're Horoscope For Today" Al walked up to the microphone as if he was going to say something and yelled, "Hello!" He did the same before "Melanie" as well. Al had a lot of fun teasing the crowd. He asked if anyone was from Albuquerque because it would be an amazing coincidence because the next song was written for them. The crowd went crazy, then he said the song was called "One More Minute."
"Wanna B Ur Lovr" was probably the most fun for us because throughout the song, Al walked out on the little walkway and literally walked right in front of us. He walked past us as if he didn't see us, then suddenly turned and looked back at Brittany very quickly. Very funny.
For "It's All About The Pentiums" Al's hair was loose on one side, and some guys near the front were standing so he played to them a lot. For "Smells Like Nirvana," he intentionallt forgot the whole verse at the right point in the song, and the audience actually sang along loud enough to make up for it. He took the microphone over to the two people who were standing and pointed it at them for the "Can you tell me what I'm sayin'?" line.
Overall, the crowd the very energetic. Everyone's arms were waving during "Amish Paradise." Surprisingly "Couch Potato" didn't get hardly any reaction from the crowd, but "Fat" certainly did. There was a standing ovation for "Fat" and once again after "The Saga Begins" and "Yoda."
After the show Dana stopped by our seats and we all headed out to try to find the buses. After wandering around for a while, Dana had to leave and we met up with Mike again. Mike had scoped out a gate near the buses so we waited there and soon a small crowd formed around us. In the crowd was TMBJon! and he came up and introduced himself. I had met Jon once before, but it's been a long time since we've seen each other.
After a short while, Al's tour manager came out and explained that Al's wife and baby had flown in and Al wasn't going to be coming out because he had to go meet them. Since I had a long drive home and I knew I'd be seeing Al the next day, I decided not to hang out, even though most of the crowd ended up hanging out anyway to see the buses off. I said goodbye to Mike and Jon and headed out. We got in at about 2:30 and I wrote up some notes on the show and went to bed.
More Pictures!!!
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