Westbury Music Fair
Westbury, NY
July 8, 2004
Our next stop on the July portion of the Poodle Hat Tour was in Westbury, my favorite venue to see "Weird Al" Yankovic and the poodle players at. Jackie had work that day, but managed to get out early and drove to my house so we could carpool. We got a later start than I would have liked to, stopped at Wendy's for dinner, and went to go get Serge.
From Serge's house, I relied on the GPS to get us there, and it took us through Staten Island, to Long Island, but overall, we didn't hit as much traffic as I thought we would, just a lot of volume. It did take us a good hour and half to get there though and we listened to Aerosmith the whole way there.
We ended up arriving the exact same time as Adrian and Anne, and parking two cars away without realizing it. Jackie, Serge and I went to the doors to wait, and met up with James from the Fourm, his dad, and two buddies, Tom and Tim. We stopped long enough for a picture and for Anne and Adrian to find us, then went inside.
Security questioned Serge's camera, but he got in okay with it after all. Adrian noticed new variations on the black baseball cap and the black bucket hat, so I bought one of each for my collection. We went to our seats, and as I'm sitting down, the person next to me introduces herself as Jessi from the Fourm, and introduces her friend Derek, so it was a banner day for meeting new people I only knew through screen names.
Serge and I went back to the lobby to get a hot dog, and as I'm waiting in line, some guy sneaks up behind me and says, "I know someone who has that same exact tattoo." Well, of course it's Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz. Serge ran back to the seat to get Jon some CDs, and Jon and I chatted for a little bit and I asked him if he had ever heard of a band called Guster. He hadn't, so I informed him that the drummer is really good, but not only that, he drums on a regular drum kit with his bare hands. Jon said that would hurt and he'd wouldn't be trying that.
Jon got a phone call, and had to run. The opening act was already on stage when we got back to our seats. It was the same guy as in Easton, PA, and from the sound of it, I was glad I missed the act again.
Shortly after, the show started. The stage was in front of us for the start of "Angry White Boy Polka," then on the other side by the end of the song. Right before "Party At The Leper Colony" Al asked who was here for the shows last year. About half of the audience raised their hands. It was at that point he said it was the same show, so we would feel the nostalgia from 2003.
By "A Complicated Song," the stage was facing us again, and the introduction went over very well. There were people in the audience actually yelling at each other to shut off the phone, or answer it already. Al got extremely angry, until Jim West leaned over and pointed to Al's pocket.
"Melanie" was performed mostly away from us, but there were times Al came around to the back. Just when it was getting to the really boring part of the song, Al introduced Jim and Jim did a guitar solo right in the middle of the song. It was really a pleasant surprise. I'm glad Al is giving the guys in the band a chance to show off, even if it is only for a few seconds.
I took a few pictures during the first few songs, but I had the camera on the wrong setting, so only a few came out. It wasn't until about "Dog Eat Dog" that I noticed the setting was wrong. The nice thing about the revolving stage for this song is that it forced the spotlight to remain stationary on the stage for long periods of time. While I'm sure it's a creative reference to something, to me the moving spotlight just looks stupid, so I was happy to see it not move for a while.
Al went into the audience for "Wanna B Ur Lovr," but unfortunately the audience wasn't as lit up as it had been in the past years, so it was hard to see him. For "Trash Day," there was only one poorly painted "garbage can" right in the middle of the stage, and it stayed there through "Beverly Hillbillies/Money For Nothing" so that was kind of funny to see.
The stage went around several times for the medley. "Free Delivery" was away from us, "Ode To A Superhero" was off to the side, and "Eat It" was off to the other side. "Smells Like Nirvana" had much better cheerleaders than the previous night, and Al randomly ran into the audience a few times too.
It was a pretty standard show from then out. During "Yoda," Al went over to someone in the audience and said, "You're not singing. It's 'Yoda, Yo Yo Yo Yo Yoda' over again."
After the show, we exited by the bus area, which were very poorly lit. We waited about an hour. I ran into Melanie and Brian and we chatted for a bit, and I talked at length with James. Steve Jay and Rubén Valtierra came out to sign autographs, and finally the crowd was told that Al would meet everyone, but no posed pictures because it was a big crowd.
At that point, Jon came out again, and chatted with us while we waited in line, After we met Al, Jon motioned us over to a table and we talked some more, mostly about the Weird Al Star Fund and his dogs. Finally we had to break it up because the staff wanted to start cleaning up the area, and Serge and Allison had somehow gotten separated from the group and were waiting outside the tent, so we needed to meet up with them again.
As a group we went out front and took some wacky pictures in front of the weird picture of Al they always have up for the show, and other pictures they had up advertising the upcoming shows. We decided we had spent enough time there, so we split, and Adrian brought Allison back to her hotel, and I drove Serge home.
More Pictures!!!
You can click on the highlighted words above and below to see more concert photos.
Thanks to Adrian Vazquez for removing the darkness from some of the pictures for me!