This surreal half-hour comedy special came to the streaming platform in 2019. But with Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and “Stranger Things” Season 5 in the news, it’s never been more timely.
“Weird Al” Yankovic has announced a massive expansion to this year’s Bigger & Weirder Tour. The parody musician will continue the trek in 2026 with an additional 90 stops throughout North America, including in cities such as Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas, Austin, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and more. As on the previous leg of the Bigger & Weirder Tour, the singer Puddles Pity Party will support. See the full roster of dates below.
The Bigger & Weirder Tour kicked off this past June in Las Vegas and wrapped in September in Nashville, with stops in over 60 cities. Earlier this year, Yankovic starred in the Ayo Edebiri–directed music video for Clairo’s “Terrapin,” from her 2024 album Charm, in which he acted as a stand-in for Clairo. Yankovic released his most recent studio album, Mandatory Fun, in 2014.
“Weird Al” Yankovic:
05-26 Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hotel and Casino
05-27 Estero, FL – Hertz Arena
05-29 Orlando, FL – Kia Center
05-30 Greenville, SC – Bon Secours Wellness Arena
05-31 Alpharetta, GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
06-02 Augusta, GA – Bell Auditorium
06-03 Savannah, GA – Enmarket Arena
06-05 Greensboro, NC – First Horizon Coliseum
06-06 Charleston, WV – Charleston Coliseum
06-07 Norfolk, VA – Chartway Arena
06-09 North Charleston, SC – North Charleston Coliseum
06-10 Pikeville, KY – Appalachian Wireless Arena
06-12 Camdenton, MO – Ozarks Amphitheater
06-13 TBA
06-14 Louisville, KY – KFC Yum! Center
06-16 Evansville, IN – Ford Center
06-17 Springfield, MO – Great Southern Bank Arena
06-19 Riverside, MO – Morton Amphitheater
06-20 North Little Rock, AR – Simmons Bank Arena
06-21 Wichita, KS – INTRUST Bank Arena
06-23 Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre
06-24 Rapid City, SD – Summit Arena
06-26 Duluth, MN – AMSOIL Arena
06-27 Chicago, IL – United Center
06-28 Omaha, NE – Baxter Arena
06-30 Sioux Falls, SD – Denny Sanford PREMIER Center
07-01 Cedar Rapids, IA – Alliant Energy PowerHouse
07-03 Grand Rapids, MI – Acrisure Amphitheater
07-04 Windsor, Ontario – The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor
07-05 Niagara Falls, Ontario – OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino
07-07 Saginaw, MI – Dow Event Center
07-08 Erie, PA – Erie Insurance Arena
07-10 Syracuse, NY – The Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater at Lakeview
07-11 Elmont, NY – UBS Arena
07-12 Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
07-14 Providence, RI – Providence Performing Arts Center
07-15 Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun Arena
07-17 Atlantic City, NJ – Borgata Event Center
07-18 Boston, MA – TD Garden
07-19 Bangor, ME – Maine Savings Amphitheater
07-21 Lenox, MA – Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood
07-22 Gilford, NH – BankNH Pavilion
07-24 Essex Junction, VT – Midway Lawn at Champlain Valley Expo
07-25 TBA
07-26 Ottawa, Ontario – Canadian Tire Centre
07-28 Bridgeport, CT – Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
07-29 Harrington, DE – Delaware Lottery Summer Concert Series at the Delaware State Fair
07-31 Hershey, PA – GIANT Center
08-01 Burgettstown, PA – The Pavilion at Star Lake
08-02 Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion
08-04 Bethlehem, PA – Musikfest
08-05 Columbus, OH – Ohio State Fair Concert Series
08-06 Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Music Center
08-28 St. Paul, MN – Minnesota State Fair Grandstand Concert Series
08-29 Grand Forks, ND – Alerus Center
08-30 Winnipeg, Manitoba – Canada Life Centre
09-01 Edmonton, Alberta – Rogers Place
09-02 Kelowna, British Columbia – Prospera Place
09-03 TBA
09-05 Puyallup, WA – Columbia Bank Concert Series at the Washington State Fair
09-06 Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
09-07 Salem, OR – Columbia Bank Concert Series at the Oregon State Fair
09-09 Central Point, OR – Bi-Mart Amphitheater
09-11 Lincoln, CA – The Venue at Thunder Valley Casino Resort
09-12 Fresno, CA – Save Mart Center
09-13 Palm Desert, CA – Acrisure Arena
09-15 Paso Robles, CA – Viña Robles Amphitheatre
09-16 San Diego, CA – The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park
09-18 Las Vegas, NV – MGM Grand Garden Arena
09-19 Anaheim, CA – Honda Center
09-20 Tucson, AZ – Tucson Arena
09-22 Austin, TX – Moody Center
09-23 Baton Rouge, LA – Raising Cane’s River Center Arena
09-25 Fort Worth, TX – Dickies Arena
09-26 Southaven, MS – Landers Center
09-27 Knoxville, TN – Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center
09-29 Auburn, AL – The Gogue Center
09-30 Tallahassee, FL – Donald L. Tucker Civic Center
10-02 Birmingham, AL – Coca-Cola Amphitheater
10-03 Orange Beach, AL – The Wharf Amphitheater
10-04 Brandon, MS – Brandon Amphitheater
10-06 Chattanooga, TN – Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Auditorium
10-07 Salem, VA – Salem Civic Center
10-08 Charlottesville, VA – John Paul Jones Arena
10-10 Toledo, OH – Huntington Center
10-11 University Park, PA – Bryce Jordan Center
10-13 Peoria, IL – Peoria Civic Center Arena
10-15 Fort Wayne, IN – Allen County War Memorial Coliseum
10-16 Green Bay, WI – Resch Center
10-17 Milwaukee, WI – Fiserv Forum
Last Week Tonight honored its native New York City as John Oliver conducted an audit of Eric Adams‘s scandal-ridden mayoralty — and welcomed recently minted mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, an introduction that led to resounding cheers from the live audience.
As Oliver discussed Mamdani’s triumphant speech — which he characterized as an “entirely earned victory lap” and “pretty satisfying” — he noted that some, such as CNN’s Van Jones, critiqued the words as “sharp” and a “character switch.”
“He just weathered one of the most Islamophobic campaigns in recent memory,” the late-night host countered. “‘I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private live’ is a frankly superhuman level of grace to extend to a man who has yet to pronounce your name correctly once.”
After concluding his story for the night — on how America’s singular felony murder laws exacerbate mass incarceration — Oliver returned to the topic of his show’s home city, delivering a eulogy of sorts for the outgoing Adams administration, scheduled to depart Jan. 1.
Calling the leadup to the NYC mayoral election “truly insane from start to finish” — as best exemplified by a viral debate question concerning parades — Oliver mulled over the fact that one local news segment couldn’t locate a single resident to express disappointment in Adams dropping out of the race.
“They couldn’t find anyone! This city has 8 million people. I’m a 1000% sure I could find someone who would vote for a pigeon fucking a bagel in Central Park, but no takers for Eric Adams — that has got to hurt,” he quipped.
In offering “one last look at Eric Adams because he is a deeply weird man,” the political comic paid homage to Adams’s amusing flag-raising ceremonies, in which he has repeatedly stated that New York is the [insert given nation’s capital city] of America.
Though Adams began as a popular candidate with an over 60% approval rating, his stats dropped over 40% in the span of two years. Oliver outlined “the true hallmark of the Adams administration was its constant scandals,” going over a laundry list of corruption, bribery and conspiracy charges faced by a number of admin officials.
“This is a great city, but that is not because of you [Adams] and sometimes it is in active spite of you,” Oliver concluded. “You know, if I could sum up Eric Adams’s mayoralty in one word, it’d probably be: New York, because this is a place where every day you wake up you can experience a plane crashing into our Trade Center, to a fake vegan, non-Alabaman leaving a ghost-filled Gracie Mansion to lecture all of us on family, business, public safety and, of course, clitoral stimulation.”
And though Oliver made sure to include the “soundbite bonanza” that was Republican Curtis Sliwa’s campaign — from his anecdotes about his historical clashes with organized crime to his shots at Andrew Cuomo — the host did forget one gem from the Adams administration: his much-memed, bizarre anti-drug PSA video.
For a hugely popular, contemporary country music act—especially one with a fine, stately name—Old Dominion sure like to get weird.
That creative impulse goes all the way back to their 2015 debut album, Meat and Candy, which had a cover depicting a waitress presiding over a table covered in a smorgasbord of delicious candy and meat. As a young country act making its first steps into the spotlight, the cover art was oddly surreal.
Now, in a career that has so far earned nine No. 1 country singles, comes Old Dominion’s sixth studio album, Barbara, out August 22 on Columbia Nashville/Sony Music Nashville. The cover introduces a new character and album namesake: a proudly aging grande dame of the beauty parlor, sitting beneath a hair dryer in a pink dress and costume jewelry, cat-eye sunglasses, a long cigarette burning between her fingers.
While a lot of country acts tend to display traditional portraits of themselves on albums, Old Dominion see record covers mostly as another canvas for their creative whims. Barbara’s fictional cover subject is meant to “embody the entire body of work that we have created, but also reflect the silly side of who we are as people,” says singer-guitarist Matthew Ramsey.
“The character ‘Barbara’ that we created, we wanted her to be sophisticated and trashy at the same time,” he adds. “She looks like somebody that you would want to hang with and listen to the stories and the life lessons that she has.”
Before the album is even out, fans have already been turning up at concerts dressed as “Barbara,” with curlers in their hair, faux fur jackets, sunglasses, and dangling cigarettes.
“We try to do things a little left to center,” says keyboardist-guitarist Trevor Rosen. “We really love the old school album covers—the Blink-182 and the Cars album covers—and we just try to be a little more artistic with it. Barbara definitely throws back to that spirit and mentality.”
The band were fully involved in the making of the album cover, down to helping cast the actress and being on-site during the photo shoot. The chosen model, named Shalene, had the look down, but didn’t truly share her character’s lifestyle. “She had to practice holding a cigarette because she’d never held one before,” says Ramsey. “She’s a sweet lady.”
Both Ramsey and Rosen are on Zoom from their homes in Nashville, talking about the new album during a short break from their ongoing How Good Is That world tour. The songwriters note that despite the playful cover image, Old Dominion consider Barbara the band’s most personal album.
The 13 songs explore longing and personal losses, celebrate the evolving music scene in Nashville, and tell stories of love gone wrong. “Man or the Song” has Ramsey questioning the impact of success, while “Water My Flowers” describes the search for an eternal love. Produced by the band with Shane McAnally, Barbara was recorded in Nashville, and initial singles released from the album have already made an impact.
Earlier this month, the band posted a video on social media from the summer tour of a little girl named Jordyn holding up a sign covered in photos of her late father and requesting the song “Miss You Man.” During a pause in the show, Ramsey was visibly moved as he spoke with the girl and said, “I had a feeling that was your daddy. Thank you for bringing this sign and showing us. I’m sure you do miss him very much but he’s here. I can feel him, man.”
The song was written originally in tribute to the band’s late friend, songwriter Andrew Dorff, a frequent collaborator with Old Dominion, and songs he co-wrote are still part of the live show every night. The brother of actor Stephen Dorff, he died while on vacation in 2016 at age 40. The song opens, “Sometimes I swear I smell your cigarette in the backseat of my car / What I wouldn’t give for one more hit behind the Jacksonville Walmart / Tonight I broke when I thought of a joke that only you would get.”
It was released as a single at the end of July, but it has become a frequent fan request in memory of lost friends and family. On that night, Old Dominion didn’t have the song on their planned set-list but performed it for Jordyn during the encore. “Everyone on stage was crying. I couldn’t make it through the song,” Ramsey recalls now. “You look over at the side stage, everyone in our crew is crying. There’s all these big roadie dudes that work hard and push cases, and they’re all crying on the side of the stage. It was brutal. But at the end of the day, that’s what you want, man. Especially on a song that was so meaningful to us, to watch it immediately have such an impact on people’s lives, it was very emotional.”
In February, Old Dominion—which also includes guitarist Brad Tursi, bassist Geoff Sprung, and drummer Whit Sellers—played a seven-show residency at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, both to raise money for charity and to celebrate their seventh consecutive CMA Group of the Year award. Choosing its iconic stage for the band’s “Seven for Seven” shows had real meaning for them. While the ancient space is now a venue for many kinds of popular music and stand-up comedy, it is still most revered as “the Mother Church” of country music.
Old Dominion spent four days at the Ryman, playing two shows most nights. It amounted to enough time there for it to feel a lot like home, in spite of its monumental history as the former host to the Grand Ole Opry and generations of country music icons.
“Honestly, that’s one of the things I’m most proud of in this band,” says Ramsey. “When you’re there, you can’t help but be faced with [the history], and accept the fact that you are a part of it. Especially living in Nashville, in this business there’s a lot of imposter syndrome. We constantly tell ourselves we don’t belong, and we’re waiting on somebody to tell us, ‘Hey, you gotta leave the party.’ And a moment like that, where you’re standing on such a historic stage and you’re walking around in the dressing rooms … you can just see the history, you can feel it, you can smell it, and then you realize, ‘Oh my gosh, we are a part of this, the fabric of this town.’”
The band closed the final show with the album’s outro “Goodnight Music City,” an affectionate, wistful tribute to Nashville, with lyrics modeled after the classic children’s book Goodnight Moon. In the song, Ramsey sings of their adopted hometown with love and disappointment. Tennessee’s “Music City” has gone through growth and painful changes in recent years, and seen historic venues and studios swept away for development, even as Nashville remains the place for, as the song says, “Telling the truth with the same three chords…”
“We couldn’t have written the song had we not experienced it for as long as we have,” says Ramsey. “We just wanted to give a good real look at this community that we love—we look at it with such reverence, but also a middle finger sometimes. Like any relationship, it doesn’t come without the dirty side of it too.”
Rosen notes that even as the city’s music institutions and landmarks undergo change, Nashville remains a magnet for musical talent. He says, “Music Row doesn’t look the same as it did anymore. Broadway doesn’t look the same. Midtown doesn’t look the same anymore, but at the heart of it, it’s still a songwriter town, and there’s still great songs being written here every day.”
Even now, their admiration is most often directed at the gifted singer-songwriters they got to witness in the clubs and cafes of Nashville. When Old Dominion was still struggling to break through, songwriting sustained them. Over the years, Ramsey had his work recorded by the Band Perry, Craig Morgan, Dierks Bentley, and Kenny Chesney. Rosen did the same for the Band Perry, Bentley, Blake Shelton, and William Michael Morgan. And Brad Tursi wrote songs for Chesney, Luke Bryan, and Tyler Farr.
While most of the band members are from Virginia, they only came together as a group once they individually began trying their luck in Nashville. Ramsey got to town in 2002, Rosen in 2003. It wasn’t until 2015 that Old Dominion’s debut, Meat and Candy, landed. That’s a long time between arrival in the city and even beginning to find the popular success Old Dominion is known for today.
In the early days, Old Dominion crowded into Ramsey’s green minivan (nicknamed “the Green Room”), with a U-Haul trailer filled with instruments and gear, for long drives to nearby states. After years of struggle, the turning point finally came with their first album, which included two No. 1 hits on country radio. It arrived just as some band members were beginning to question whether they wanted to get in that crowded van another year for uncertain rewards.
From that weariness, Old Dominion were suddenly on the charts and on their way.
“It all happened right about that breaking point,” Ramsey remembers. “So then we’re all looking at each other, watching everything go up the charts. We’re going, ‘Holy crap, did we crack the code?
“I remember, we were driving in the car on the way to our first No. 1 party as a band—it was when ‘Break Up with Him’ went No. 1. I had a bunch of family in town, and my uncle said, ‘Man, did you ever imagine that this would happen?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I had to, or I would’ve given up.’ That doesn’t change the fact that it’s shocking when it does happen. But there is a part of you that has to believe.”