For White Out weekend, the Bryce Jordan Center hosted two very different concerts.

On Friday, Alabama rocked the stage with their country-rock and bluegrass tunes, with opener The Oak Ridge Boys setting the stage.

Then, on Sunday, “Weird Al” Yankovic brought his Bigger & Weirder tour to the BJC. 

Alabama

Alabama is a country rock and bluegrass band formed in Fort Payne, Alabama, in 1969, consisting of cousins Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry, and Jeff Cook. Cook passed away in 2022, but Owen and Gentry continued touring to keep his memory alive.

The band has had 33 No. 1 hits, including “Tennessee River,” “Feels So Right,” and “Love in the First Degree.”

The Oak Ridge Boys opened the concert with “You’re the One,” followed by “American Made” and “Trying to Love Two Women.” The crowd loved clapping along with the band and the solo that continued the set with “Gonna Take a Lot of River.” 

Red lights and visuals lit up the stage as the band continued with “Dream On” and “Y’all Come Back Saloon.” The drums kicked off “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight,” and the crowd hollered along.

“Down Deep Inside” was followed by “I Guess it Never Hurts to Hurt,” before the band took a moment to talk with the crowd and thank Pennsylvania for showing up.

The performance slowed with “Thank God for Kids,” which drew a strong emotional response as soft pink lights illuminated the performers. They then continued with gospel songs before picking up the pace with their hit “Elvira” to close their set.

The crowd gave the band a standing ovation, which ended in an encore of “Bobbie Sue,” before the band exited one by one.

After a short break between performers, Alabama finally took the stage after the national anthem. The crowd stayed standing after the anthem to cheer the band’s entrance.

“Tennessee River” started Alabama’s set with visuals of rivers and nature accompanying the band. They followed with “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas,” where lead singer Owen asked the crowd to sing along, and they did so with no help.

The stage transformed to show their original music videos from the 1970s and 1980s as the crowd sang “The Closer You Get.” The band transitioned into “Sad Lookin’ Moon” before Gentry waved his hands in defeat.

“Time out … we done four fast songs in a row; you realize how old we are? We got a few ballads to pull out to catch our breath,” Gentry joked as the lights dimmed to blue and they began playing “Forever’s as Far as I’ll Go.”

The crowd pulled out their flashlights and kept them on when Alabama continued with “Fire in the Night.”

“We’re fifteen hundred miles away from the place we call home, but we feel like we’re right at home right now,” Owen told the crowd as the band began to play “Song of the South.”

Then Alabama transitioned into “Love in the First Degree.”

Owen then told a story about the band’s old friend Danny Thomas, the founder of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Owen continued, explaining that he founded Country Music Cares to help children at St. Jude’s. This transitioned into “Angels Among Us.”

After the ballads, the band brought the tempo back up with “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” and “High Cotton” before introducing the band and crew and leading a “We Are” chant led by the Pennsylvania native keyboardist.

The lead duo then gave the fiddler a solo moment before dedicating the next song, “Born Country,” to farmers, ranchers, ROTC members, military members, and their families.

The BJC kept the party going with “Five O’Clock 500,” “Forty Hour Week,” and “Roll On,” which included a couple of crowd callbacks.

To finish their set, Owen and Gentry played their best-known song, “Dixieland Delight,” with the crowd singing the whole time, then bowed and blew kisses before heading offstage.

A minute later, the lights came back on, and the band returned for an encore with “Mountain Music.”

To end the show, they projected a photo of Cook on the screen in tribute, and a guitar pic was tossed into the crowd as the lights dimmed.

“Weird Al” Yankovic

Only 48 hours after Alabama’s performance, Yankovic took over the stage for a totally different vibe. 

Puddles Pity Party opened the night with his parody “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” and “Come Cry With Me,” which included his notorious Cry Cam that spotlighted audience members. 

While returning to the stage, a clip played asking “Who would like to help the clown,” and up came a younger audience member to play the cardboard guitar for Puddles’ rendition of “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne.

After that, Puddles pulled the harmonica from the prop briefcase and began his performance of “America Today,” which transitioned into a dramatized rendition of Linkin Park’s “In The End.”

The parody continued as Puddles sang “Let’s Give Them Pumpkin to Talk About,” then professed his love for Kevin Costner during his rendition of the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song. 

Another crowd volunteer came on to scarf down Hostess Ding Dongs for the “smoosh-up” of Queen’s “Under Pressure” and “Let It Go.” For the final performance of his set, Puddles sang “If I Can Dream,” which was accompanied by an arena full of phone flashlights.

After a short intermission, Yankovic’s set finally began. The performance opened with a skit on the screens, then a live video of Yankovic singing “Tacky,” a parody of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy,” which ended with him entering through the crowd and making his way to the stage. 

After his “contractually obligated PowerPoint” speech, which led into a performance of “Mission Statement,” Yankovic broke out the accordion for his song “Pop Polka.”

After the polka session, Yankovic slipped into a velvet jacket and serenaded the ladies in the crowd with “One More Minute,” followed by a clip from his 2022 biopic. 

The lights came up on the stage for a dreary high school scene for the parody “Smells Like Nirvana,” then more cuts and takes from different Yankovic skits played.

Another set change, inspired by DEVO, came for the song “Dare to be Stupid.” More skits and pop-culture references played, and the band came out in suits and sunglasses for “Party in the CIA,” “It’s All About the Pentium,” and “Bedrock Anthem.” 

The accordion made a comeback for “My Bologna,” “Ricky,” “Ode to a Superhero,” and “I Love Rocky Road.” Then came the onstage costume changes as Yankovic pulled out the Michael Jackson “Thriller” jacket and performed his well-known parody “Eat It.”

Another costume change into scrubs happened in the blink of an eye for “Like a Surgeon,” then into a Canadian flag blazer for “Canadian Idiot.” The scene was finished with the parody “Word Crimes,” which the crowd sang along to. 

After a short skit played on the screens, Yankovic came out in a comedic fat suit and sang his hit parody “Fat,” which ended with a fight between him and Santa Claus.

After a brief montage of clips, Yankovic came back out to perform three theme songs he has written, including “It’s My World and We’re All Living in It” from Disney Channel’s “Milo Murphy’s Law,” as well as the Captain Underpants theme song and the end-credits song “Now You Know” for his very own biopic. 

“I was walking around campus, and there’s a lot of social anxiety from other people because they seem to not know how to address me. Mr. Yankovic? Weird Al? Alfie baby pooke face?” Yankovic said.

He then transitioned into his song “You Can Call Me Al,” along with “Skipper Dan,” “eBay,” and his pop ballad “Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me.”

A skit from the hit movie “Whiplash” played, giving Yankovic time to change into his “White & Nerdy” costume, which he performed at the beginning on a Segway.

More clip compilations played at the end of the song before the lights slowly came back on to reveal the band dressed as the Amish for “Amish Paradise.” 

For an encore, Yankovic, the band, and extras came out dressed as different “Star Wars” characters, Yankovic being Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He went on to sing “We All Have Cellphones,” “The Saga Begins,” and “Yoda,” which was briefly interrupted by the “Yoda Chant,” before the set ended with a standing ovation.

Needless to say, the White Out wasn’t the only thing to rock Happy Valley this past weekend.