“Weird Al” Yankovic set out on The Bigger & Weirder 2026 Tour on May 26th in Hollywood, FL. The tour is set to hit 90 U.S. cities and will come to a close on October 17th in Milwaukee, WI. They’ve barely just gotten started at this point, so you have absolutely no excuse to miss it when the tour rolls into your town. For a second year in a row, he brought along Puddles Pity Party to open up all dates on the tour. We were so excited for the opportunity to catch the tour early when they hit up First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, NC back on June 5, 2026.
While there is loads of music, a huge part of this show is the comedy brought to you by the performers. When Puddles Pity Party hit the stage, everyone remained in their seats. That’s not an every day occurrence at the shows we review, but the crowd was definitely not bored and probably not sleeping. Okay, a couple may have been but they were quickly jostled awake when Puddles scanned the crowd for helpers. Whether it was bringing a young audience member on stage to join in on guitar for a cover of “Crazy Train” or grabbing a willing participant to come stuff his mouth with cupcakes, the crowd was more than willing. Everyone had a blast during Puddles Pity Party and it was the perfect opening act to get everyone ready for the show to come.
When Weird Al hit the stage, he and his band went straight into “Tacky” off his 14th studio album, Mandatory Fun. Even if you don’t recognize all of Weird Al’s tunes, you’ll always recognize the very popular songs he parodies. At this point, his catalog is huge. I wondered how does he choose what to play and what not to play on tour. For one, he brings a huge set every night. Weird Al and his band played a huge 2 hour set that night. They played loads of favorites from the past, but they also worked in some medleys. This gave fans at least a taste of various songs from over the years. I grew up in the 80’s, I loved still getting the chance to hear “Eat It” and “Like a Surgeon” live because those were some of my first memories of hearing Weird Al for the first time. But he still played some 90’s favorites, “Smells Like Nirvana” and “Amish Paradise”. Then still threw in some 2000’s songs like “Party in the CIA” and “Canadian Idiot”. There were decades of our favorite parodies, which all somehow incorporated extremely fast costume changes just to put you right in the song for every single song. “Bigger & Weirder” was definitely right and we loved every second of it.
For tickets and a full list of tour dates, visit: https://www.weirdal.com/tour/
I’m Music Magazine Associate Editor/Photographer Daphne McKinney
Puddles Pity Party:
