Weird Al Yankovic’s Bigger & Weirder Tour 2025
A Glorious Accordion-Powered Circus of Song, Satire, and Sequins
By Mike Sprouse/ Odd Rocker Photography for Parklife DC
Let’s get one thing straight: Weird Al is not just a parody artist. He’s not just some accordion-slinging novelty act, he’s not “that food guy” or “the guy who did that Nirvana thing.” Weird Al is an institution — a culturally vital, still-thriving, crowd-conducting master of musical comedy who continues to evolve without ever really changing. That’s the magic trick.
And Sunday night at the Filene Center at Wolf Trap, Weird Al brought his Bigger and Weirder Tour to town, and — no surprise — it was an absolute circus in the best possible way.
There were polkas. There were costume changes. There were backup singers and synchronized arm choreography. There was a full-blown medley that turned an entire generation of pop songs into the soundtrack of your fever dream. And somewhere along the way, we were reminded just how necessary weirdness still is.
Right out of the gate on July 20, Al kicked off with “Tacky,” walking through the crowd then bouncing onto the stage in a mismatched technicolor nightmare of an outfit that would’ve made early-career Cyndi Lauper squint. The crowd — already primed with Hawaiian shirts, aluminum foil hats, and more vintage merch than a ’90s convention booth — was immediately on board.
Al prowled the stage like a smug suburban peacock, turning light social gripes into full-blown musical theater. It was part vaudeville, part fashion critique, all joy.
That opening energy never dipped. From there, he rolled into “Mission Statement” — a pitch-perfect satire of soulless corporate jargon sung in a Crosby, Stills & Nash harmony so on-point it probably triggered a few PTSD flashbacks for anyone who’s ever suffered through a team-building seminar.
Watch the official music video for “Mission Statement” by Weird Al Yankovic on YouTube:
The night got unreasonably delightful when the orchestra fired up “Polkamania!,” which jammed together snippets of recent chart-toppers like a glitter cannon loaded with chaos. The medley included frantic accordion-powered takes on Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Taylor Swift, and a completely uncalled-for polka version of “WAP” that got a bigger roar than some headliners get all tour.
You haven’t truly lived until you’ve watched hundreds of people — including at least three toddlers and one guy in a full Jedi robe — scream along to Cardi B through a polka filter under the stars.
Somewhere around “Everything You Know Is Wrong,” it hit me: Weird Al shows aren’t really about parody anymore, not at the core. They’re about shared absurdity. Like, yes, the lyrics are funny, and yes, the songs are cleverly reworked, but what’s really happening is this joyful mass delusion where we all agree to live inside Al’s alternate universe for a while. And it’s better in there.
He whipped through “One More Minute” in his best faux-crooner sleaze, hurling himself across the stage with Elvis-level drama, before careening into “Smells Like Nirvana,” complete with marbles in the mouth, snarled hair, and just the right amount of post-grunge slouch.
And then came “Dare to Be Stupid,” a track that’s aged so well it feels prophetic. It’s Devo filtered through Dad jokes, and still somehow it feels current — maybe even more now than when it first dropped.
Midway through the night, he let loose what can only be described as a megamix on speed: “Party in the CIA,” “It’s All About the Pentiums,” “Bedrock Anthem,” “My Bologna,” “Ricky,” “Ode to a Superhero,” “I Love Rocky Road,” “Eat It,” “Like a Surgeon,” “Word Crimes,” and “Canadian Idiot” — one after another in a high-velocity stream of absurdity that almost felt like a flex.
It was dizzying and brilliant. Every one of those songs has had a cultural moment, and here they were, stacked like a sandwich made of pop culture, bologna, and Wikipedia jokes.
Just when it seemed like the momentum might let up, Al sauntered back out in his iconic inflated “Fat” suit and hit those moves with the same snap he had 30 years ago. Somehow, it felt like he was still poking holes in our obsession with image, fame, and pop fluff… just, you know, while waddling across the stage and yelling “I’m FAT!”
The crowd went nuts. Not in a “ha ha, that’s silly” way, but in a “we’ve been waiting for this moment for three years and now it’s here and it’s weird and we LOVE IT” way.
Things got weirdly wholesome after that. Al introduced the “Captain Underpants Theme” with a kind of childlike glee, then launched into “Now You Know,” “I Am Woman” (his cheeky rewrite of the Helen Reddy anthem from Weird: The Al Yankovic Story), and “It’s My World (and We’re All Living in It).”
You could feel the whiplash if you were trying to track it linearly — but that’s the whole point. One minute, you’re listening to a guy rap about eBay auctions and bootleg Star Wars memorabilia. The next, he’s singing about climate change and capitalism with a sincere glint in his eye and an accordion in his hands.
“Skipper Dan” was up next and it seemed that maybe everyone’s got a little bit of Skipper Dan in them — a dream deferred, a life rerouted.
He saved some of the heaviest hitters for the final stretch. “eBay” slid into “Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me,” which felt like a gentle roast of half the parents in the crowd. “White & Nerdy” had the place on its feet, with Al riding a Segway across the stage like it was 2006 again.
Then came “Amish Paradise,” and the lawn crowd finally cracked wide open as people sang every word. It’s still one of his sharpest songs — social satire, musical precision, and a music video that lives rent-free in our collective psyche.
Watch the official music video for “Amish Paradise” by Weird Al Yanknovic on YouTube:
For the encore, Al went quiet. A spotlight hit him as he asked, deadpan: “Can everyone hold up their cell phones?” Cue hundreds of little lights — and then, the entire crowd singing along to the ridiculous, solemn hymn “We All Have Cell Phones.”
He followed that with the heavy hitters: “The Saga Begins,” his pitch-perfect Star Wars retelling to the tune of “American Pie,” with Darth Vader, stormtroopers, and R2-D2 — and then of course “Yoda.”
It was a perfect closer. Not because it was big and loud (though it was), but because it was pure Al. He doesn’t do irony for irony’s sake. He makes fun of the things he loves, and that sincerity somehow infects the whole room.
Setlist
1. Tacky
2. Mission Statement
3. Polkamania!
4. Everything You Know Is Wrong
5. One More Minute
6. Smells Like Nirvana
7. Dare to Be Stupid
8. Party in the CIA/It’s All About the Pentiums/Bedrock Anthem/My Bologna/Ricky/Ode to a Superhero/I Love Rocky Road/Eat It/Like a Surgeon/Word Crimes/Canadian Idiot
9. Fat
10. Captain Underpants Theme
11. Now You Know
12. I Am Woman
13. It’s My World (and We’re All Living in It)
14. Skipper Dan
15. eBay
16. Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me
17. White & Nerdy
18. Amish Paradise
Encore
19. We All Have Cell Phones
20. The Saga Begins
21. Yoda
Here are some photos of Weird Al Yankovic performing live at the Filene Center at Wolf Trap on July 20, 2025. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Michael Sprouse/ Odd Rocker Photography.
