There are two kinds of adults: the ones who outgrow their childhood interests, and the ones who cling to them to them defiantly. It’s that second camp that rules the internet. They’re the grown men and women who proudly display their Star Wars toys, blog earnestly about Nickelodeon’s golden years, click on Buzzfeed’s many articles about Saved By The Bell and are the first in line for every new Marvel movie. They’re the ones who made Fuller House happen.
I’m not one of those people. It’s not that I didn’t love my childhood—I really did—it’s that I’m happy to leave it in the past. And also, if I’m being honest, I’m also little embarrassed by it. My tastes were, like a lot of kids, pretty crude, especially in the comedy department. And like a lot of kids, I completely and utterly adored “Weird Al” Yankovic. One of my first CDs was Off The Deep End, the Weird Al album with “Smells Like Nirvana” on it. I couldn’t get enough of that song. I remember wondering at the time, “Why would anybody want to listen to the real ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ when you can listen to this version, which is the same exact music but has funny lyrics?” That was the way my brain worked at age 10.
When I outgrew Weird Al, I just assumed that everybody else did, too. It was only over the last few years that I’ve realized that wasn’t the case at all. For a certain subset of Generation Xers, Weird Al remains an untouchable deity; he’s as relevant to them now as he ever was. And I’ve always wondered, who are these people? Why is it that, every year or two, thousands of adults crowd together at Summerfest to see a headliner who is essentially a children’s performer?
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Weird Al’s opening-night show at Summerfest Wednesday night did draw some kids, but not many, and to judge by their level of interest it seemed pretty clear they were there to humor their parents, not the other way around. (Summerfest is also a pretty terrifying, unwelcoming place for children once the sun goes down). Unlike most of the crowd, I wasn’t there for nostalgia. I was there to see if, as an adult, I could figure out his appeal—since honestly, I just don’t get it. Is the joke simply that he makes jokes? Because that doesn’t seem all that rare or exciting to me. That’s Carrot Top’s joke, too. Is the joke that he sets bad jokes to music? Because, as a character from Veep put it in a clip from one of the many montages that Weird Al screened during his between-song costume changes, “Comedy songs are the mark of a douchebag.” Of course, that line came from Dan Egan, the show’s douchiest character, so maybe the joke is on people like me who don’t like comedy songs?
I didn’t get the clarity I was looking for—I still don’t understand Weird Al gets a pass and not, say, The Jerky Boys, or that one Adam Sandler CD with the talking goat on it. But as for the show itself? It was pretty great: fast-paced, joyful, inventively staged, all that. Even at 56, Weird Al is oddly ageless, and time hasn’t dulled his voice, his energy or his rubbery facial expressions any. He ripped through a polka medley of recent pop songs (or recent by Weird Al standards)—“Wrecking Ball,” “Call Me Maybe,” “Timber” and “Thrift Shop” among them—and gamely donned one costume after another: Devo flower pot hats, Kurt Cobain scrubs, Lady Gaga garbage art, the fat suit from the “Fat” video.
And his style parodies were as spot-on as ever. He did one I’d never heard before, “First World Problems,” a riff on The Pixies’ “No. 13 Baby” that replaced all the lyrics about kinky sex and violence with jokes about inadequate Wi-Fi and non-gluten-free cookies. Two decades ago I would have gone nuts over the song, the same way I did “Smells Like Nirvana,” but I’m an adult now. The days when silly lyrics seemed like value added are long over for me. These days I just want to listen to the original.
Summerfest has done a sensational job this year booking deserving local acts in prime opening slots, and they couldn’t have done any better last night than The Fatty Acids. They’re not a joke band, per se, but they’re fun as hell, and there’s something about their wry, modernist approach to prog, psych and synth rock that recalls Devo (for kids who grew up in the ’80s, Devo and Weird Al were sort of a joint package). Their stage show has really come together since the release of their 2013 album Boléro, too, and savvy assists from guests musicians from Ruth B8r Ginsburg, New Age Narcissism and Foreign Goods helped keep their hour-long set fresh. The crowd was loving it. I saw a little girl pop and locking to “Airsick.” “Who are these guys?” a woman behind me asked her boyfriend. “The Fatty Asses,” he said. “They’re really great.”
