"Weird Al" Yankovic plays Moody Center Tuesday night, and for the first time in the song's nearly 40-year existence, he's performing "Everything You Know Is Wrong" live. According to ATX Things' review of the tour's own recent setlists and a new interview with Yankovic himself, the track — a dense, breathless parody stitched together in the studio with zero room to breathe — was something he assumed he'd never attempt on a stage. An expanded, eight-person band finally made it possible.
The Bigger & Weirder 2026 Tour lands in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, Sept. 22, with doors at 6:30 p.m. and Puddles Pity Party opening. It's Yankovic's first Moody Center date since the arena opened, and it's built to feel bigger than any tour he's brought here before — literally: four new players joined his three-decade core band specifically to unlock songs the smaller lineup couldn't pull off live.
Why is this tour called "Bigger & Weirder"?
Yankovic's touring band had been the same four musicians for most of his career: Jim "Kimo" West on guitar, Steve Jay on bass, Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on drums, and (not on this particular leg, due to illness) Ruben Valtierra on keyboards. For 2026, he added Probyn Gregory (horns, guitar), Scheila Gonzalez (horns, keyboards), Payton Velligan (guitar) and Monique Donnelly (backing vocals) — an eight-piece stage that lets the show reach further into the catalog than the classic quartet ever could.
""I actually like to call this a 'best of both worlds' kind of show, because we're back to playing all the hits... But it's also a show for the hardcore fans, because we're playing half a dozen or so songs that we've never played live before, partly because our band, as it was before, really couldn't play these songs well enough to do it onstage in public. So I thought, 'Hey, if we expand the band for this tour, we can do all these songs that just never were achievable before.'" — "Weird Al" Yankovic, Rock Cellar Magazine interview, June 2026
He's careful to distinguish the move from his 2019 "Strings Attached" tour, which brought along a full symphony orchestra. This is a rock band, just a bigger one — big enough to finally stage "Everything You Know Is Wrong," a song Yankovic has said he built in the studio with no natural pause for breath, assuming he'd never reproduce it on stage.
Who is "Weird Al" Yankovic, and why does a 2026 arena tour still sell out?
Yankovic is, by volume, the best-selling comedy recording artist in history — a five-time Grammy winner who has spent four decades parodying Michael Jackson, Madonna, Nirvana, Coolio, Queen, Lady Gaga, Chamillionaire, Eminem, U2 and, more recently, Taylor Swift, every one of them with the original artist's blessing first. His 2014 album "Mandatory Fun" became the first comedy album ever to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. In 2022 he co-wrote and starred alongside Daniel Radcliffe in a self-parodying biopic, "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story." The 2025 leg of this same tour reached roughly 500,000 fans across 67 cities; the 2026 leg has already sold out Red Rocks and Madison Square Garden.
VIP Meet & Greet and Backstage Tour packages for the Austin date are already sold out, per Yankovic's own tour site. General admission and reserved seats remain available through Ticketmaster.
Show details: doors, tickets, and what locals should know
Moody Center
$$$| Date | Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026 |
| Doors / Show | 6:30 PM / 7:30 PM |
| Opener | Puddles Pity Party |
| Tickets | Ticketmaster, general admission and reserved seating listed from $76 as of this week (dynamic pricing — expect movement, same pattern this desk tracked for NE-YO & Akon's Moody Center date) |
| Age | All ages |
| Parking | Moody Center's own lots, plus the standard Ticketmaster rideshare drop-off near Lot 40 |
Reviewers who've sat inside a full Moody Center show consistently say the arena runs warm once the floor fills up — a fan or a light layer beats fighting the AC for a seat near it.
Setlist.fm's tracked average for this tour leans heavily on the catalog's biggest parodies — expect stretches of "Eat It," "Like a Surgeon," "White & Nerdy"-era material and "Word Crimes" alongside the deeper cuts the expanded band unlocked, plus Yankovic's trademark mid-show costume changes and video interludes. No two nights on this tour have run identical, so treat any specific setlist as a strong guess, not a guarantee, until the house lights come up Tuesday.
The song nobody expected to hear live
Ask longtime fans what they never thought they'd see, and "Everything You Know Is Wrong" comes up constantly — a rapid-fire, almost spoken-word parody Yankovic recorded in the studio by stitching together lines with no natural breath. He's said outright he assumed it was permanently unplayable live. The extra horns and a second guitar on this tour's band changed that math, and it's now in the regular rotation alongside five or six other songs making their live debut on this run. If you've been to a Yankovic show before and it's always felt like the same setlist with a new t-shirt, Tuesday is built to be the exception.
FAQ
Is "Weird Al" Yankovic still touring in 2026? Yes — the Bigger & Weirder Tour continues through October, with Austin's Moody Center stop on Sept. 22 following sold-out shows at Red Rocks and Madison Square Garden earlier this year.
What time do doors open at Moody Center for the Weird Al show? Doors are at 6:30 p.m., with the show starting at 7:30 p.m. and running to roughly 11 p.m., per the venue's own listing.
Who is opening for "Weird Al" Yankovic in Austin? Puddles Pity Party, the silent, sad-clown baritone act, opens the Austin date.
Are tickets still available for the Austin show? As of this week, general admission and reserved seating remain on sale through Ticketmaster starting around $76; only the VIP meet-and-greet packages are sold out.
What else is playing Moody Center this week
Tuesday's show lands in the middle of one of Moody Center's busiest stretches of the year — Empire of the Sun played the same stage Monday night, and Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival takes it over next weekend. If you're weighing which of this week's arena nights is worth the ticket, a comedy-rock legend with an eight-piece band and a 40-year back catalog is a fundamentally different night out than either of those — and one this desk isn't confident will come back around Austin again soon. It's also a fitting follow-up to Esther's Follies' 49-year run of turning 6th Street into a live comedy stage if Tuesday leaves you wanting more of Austin's weirder side — see the full guide to things to do in Austin for what's next.
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