According to Summerfest’s ever-ticking countdown clock (think of it like those “death clocks,” but with less death and more picnic-table dancing), there are four months, 20 days, 23 hours, 48 minutes, and 26…no, 25 seconds until the 2015 Big Gig. Yes, on June 24-28 and June 30-July 5, Summerfest will once again assume its throne and benevolently reign as the World’s Biggest Music Festival. A few usual-suspect Marcus Amphitheater headliners have already been announced (Florida Georgia Line, Linkin Park, Keith Urban), and David Seebach and Pre-Recorded Music are probably already readying their wands and CD cases, respectively.
While it still may be too early to play “guess the headliner” by lining up artists’ summer tours with Summerfest’s dates, we couldn’t help but notice that there’s a suspicious Summerfest-sized hole in the 2015 tour of one “Weird Al” Yankovic. The unassailable parody king (of suede) revealed his “Mandatory World Tour” dates a few weeks back, and today released a video via The A.V. Club confirming the same. It seems that Al will be playing practically non-stop from May 12 to July 3; following that July 3 show (in Prior Lake, Minnesota) there’s a three-day gap. Could this mean that “Weird Al” Yankovic is playing Summerfest on either July 4 or July 5? Could this mean that he’s playing either a 4th of July or closing-night show? We’re not sure, but it’s been five years since Al played the Big Gig, and that’s five years too many. Milwaukee deserves to hear Lorde’s “Royals” turned into a song about aluminum foil (“Foil”) live, dammit.
So while we wait, here’s “Frank’s 2000” TV” from 1993’s Alapalooza, which is the best thing ever.