24. October 2026
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The Last Bigger & Weirder Dance: Going back to Wisconsin – Green Bay (Ep. 4)

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Roghly 500 miles ahead, expected net driving time around seven hours, plus a concert at the end of the day – this seventh day of my The Last Bigger & Weirder Dance trip was absolutely nuts – and I had a lot of respect for it. Luckily, I did not take the trip on my own. Here are my road trip and concert impressions from Green Bay in Wisconsin.

 

Friday, 16th October 2026

10 Hours to Green Bay

My trip from Germany to Plover in Wisconsin on the first day was roughly a 24 hour one – with the slight additional comfort that I could sleep on the plane in SAS Business Class. From waking up at 3:30 to going to bed after the show in Green Bay, it was another 24 hour shift. No sleeping, not too much of relaxing. I was joined by Nancy, a long-term friend of the Weird Al community, which really helped a lot to survive. Leaving at 4:30 in Fort Wayne, we reached Chicago – as expected – right at the time when streets turn from green into red on Google Maps, with additional red dots indicating accidents. You simply cannot use the words “enjoyable” and Chicago traffic in one sentence.

As  discussed before, we thus bypassed Chicago by a Western detour on the I-39. Timewise, this might not have been that profitable – but it definitely helped that the remaining hours of the trip, with more and more nutrition and fuel stops, was a somehow bearable drive. Finally, we arrived in Green Bay in the early afternoon. Starting later in Indiana would have been possible, but the Chicago roads would have definitely been paying their tribute. I checked in at the Hampton Inn Green Bay Stadium, right next to Resch Center and the Packers’ Lambeau Field – bad luck that the schedule did not allow to include the Saturday home game to the list of events as well.

 

Another great show at Resch Center

I was absolutely exhausted from the entire trip and likely should have rather stayed at home. The roughly 10,000 people Resch Center was an overall very relaxed place with a bit of a strange architecture – again, there were no designated toilets for the floor level fans (same as in Fort Wayne). Walking up the stairs on the ranks for it, including the long lines at the male bathrooms, was really challenging, especially as I had to control my physical strain strictly. After Puddles‘ nice set, which was appreciated by the enthusiastic crowd, I really had to rush. A great part of the show was Payton being one of the pumpkins at Let’s give them pumkin to talk about was a highlight.

The intro was already running when I finally made it to my seat. It is so amazing to see how the additional four band members have been integrated to the band and more and more became a major factor for the evenings’ entertainment level. I again sat right in front of Stephen and we had a lovely time. Again, the cover song of the set was (You make me feel like) a natural woman – which was surprising, as it has been the Peoria choice already. However, Sheila, Monique, and Payton do have visible fun being the slightly soupy background singers in this song. I had some time to connect to people, before heading to the hotel room. It was absolutely chilly in Green Bay. Winter is knocking at your door in Northern Wisconsin – so that you could identify the die-hard locals, who still wore t-shirts outside despite the temperatures were close to frosting after the show.

 

The Last Bigger & Weirder Dance – The Episodes

I split my trip report in five sections (and an introduction post). The first section is about my experience in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. then, there is more or less one episode per concert I visited:

 

Songs Of My Life

Here are the postings of the personal Songs Of My Life category:

 

Sports Reports (Last Year)

Here are my sports reports I published during the last 12 months:

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