“Weird Al” Yankovic @ Wild Horse Pass Casino

It might be easy for some people to dismiss “Weird Al” Yankovic as an ’80s relic/Dr. Demento rip-off — if it weren’t for the fact that since he started his comedic music career in 1976, he’s sold more than 12 million albums and performed more than a thousand live shows. Most musicians, no matter how big (James Blunt excepted), love to have their songs parodied by Weird Al. When Yankovic called the late Kurt Cobain back in the early ’90s to ask if he could parody Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as “Smells Like Nirvana,” Cobain’s only question reportedly was, “It’s not about food, is it?” And he loved Yankovic’s mouth-full-of-marbles parody about how no one could understand Nirvana’s lyrics. Even Mother Monster herself, Lady Gaga, put her stamp of approval on Yankovic’s recent parody of her, “Perform This Way” (sample lyric: “Save your allowance, buy a bubble dress / And someday, you’ll go far”). Gaga’s management initially quashed Yankovic’s request to have the song on his new album (before Gaga had even heard it), but when the song finally got to Gaga, she supposedly loved it — and it will now be the first single from Yankovic’s Apocalypse album, coming out June 21.