Yesterday I wrote about Puddles Pity Party, who was the opener for “Weird Al” Yankovic, and today I’m writing about “Weird Al”. He’s an example of giving 110% onstage! He’s 66 years old, and you couldn’t tell it by how he performed; he’s got more energy than some magicians I’ve seen in their 20s.
The show was interesting as there was a lot of prerecorded video that played for decent chunks of time. The videos were fun and/or funny and used to cover up costume changes. I remember the first time I saw David Copperfield, he showed a video of one of the big tricks from a TV special right before his closing trick (flying), which I’m assuming was for a similar reason to Weird Al.
Like Puddles Pity Party, the main video screen at the back of the stage was used to enhance what was onstage, and it did a great job of that. He played clips of videos he was parodying at one point. I think that was an excellent use of the screen for comedic effect.
For me a HUGE takeaway was that everyone looked like they were having an amazing time onstage and that energy carried out to the audience.
In the show, there were two musicians behind Weird Al who were frequently on camera. They looked like they were having a better time than the audience. I think I figured out what carried the fun further out into the audience: they weren’t smiling with their lips, they were smiling with their mouths. What I mean by that is they were doing smiles with their mouths open a bit.
The next day, for all of my shows, I started smiling with my mouth, and it made a huge difference! I’ve written in the past about smiling onstage, however sometimes a reminder is great!
Go out there and put your heart into your art and smile!
-Louie