Cassandra Hannagan/WireImage(NEW YORK) — Friday night at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, Florida, Weird Al Yankovic kicked off the latest leg of his Mandatory Fun Tour. Incidentally, on that same night, he also started his new role as musical director on the IFC series Comedy Bang Bang.
On the latter, he enthuses to ABC News Radio, “I’ve always been a huge fan of the show, I’d been on the show a number of times, and it’s not often you get offered to be the co-host of one of your favorite shows.”
On the former, Al explains if you’ve already checked out the first part of the Mandatory Fun tour, don’t expect a radically different second look this time ’round. “If you saw it last year, you’re more than welcome to see it again, but it is in fact the same tour. We basically just took a nice long break, and we’re starting up again…The set list is going to be pretty much exactly the same.”
For those unfamiliar with the “Weird Al Live experience,” the bestselling artist says, adding with a laugh, “and I truly feel sorry for those sad, sad people…It’s a two-hour, high-energy rock and comedy show…There’s a ton of costume changes, there’s props, there’s a big LED screen in back of us that shows video clips to entertain people while we’re doing costume changes. And basically, we’re just trying to give people their money’s worth.”
Al notes that fans shouldn’t expect him to add another song to his classic repertoire: a spoof of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Two of his hits were based on that galaxy far, far away — “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda” — but a third would tip the scales, he tells us. “As much as I love Star Wars, I already have two…that are already popular with fans and…that I already play in the live show,” Yankovic notes. “Three Star Wars songs? It feels like, you know, then it becomes “The ‘Star Wars’ Show.“
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
