“Weird Al” Yankovic has just ended his “Ridiculously, Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour,” and at each and every one of the tour’s 77 performances, his encore was a cover of a rock n’ roll classic–done straight, not as a parody.
The songs were from every format, style and time frame, ranging from from Chuck Berry/Johnny B Goode, to Aretha, Elton, both Elvis’s–Presley and Costello; The Rolling Stones “Honky Tonk Woman,” the Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There” Led Zeppelin, the Carpenters, James Taylor, Billy Idol, Wild Cherry…
And here they are, snippets from all 77 encores, an almost 1/2 hour mashup of an entire generations collective musical memory.
Yankovic is a musician–he started playing the accordion at 6-years old. Later, he was inspired by Spike Jones, Stan Freberg and others who who combined comedy and music; he says that “listening to Elton John’s “Yellow Brick Road” album was partly how I learned to play rock ‘n’ roll on the accordion.”
If you are a Boomer it’s probable that this compilation will trigger many meaningful memories.