“Weird Al” Yankovic's MANDATORY WORLD TOUR To Rock Palace Theatre

Few would have guessed that "Weird Al" Yankovic - who as a shy, accordion-playing teenager got his start sending homemade tapes in to the "Dr. Demento Radio Show" - would go on to become the biggest-selling comedy recording artist in history and a pop culture icon. Now in his fourth career decade as America's foremost song parodist, he has been honored with four Grammy® Awards and 15 nominations, including his most recent win in 2015 for Mandatory Fun, the first-ever comedy album in history to debut at #1 on the Billboard charts, capping a career's worth of accolades for classic song and music video parodies such as "Eat It," "Like a Surgeon," "Smells Like Nirvana," "Amish Paradise," "White & Nerdy," and "Tacky."

CAPA presents "Weird Al" Yankovic - The Mandatory World Tour at the Palace Theatre (34 W. Broad St.) onWednesday, July 6, at 8 pm. Tickets are $30-$65 at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000.

In the wake of his 1989 cult-hit feature film UHF, his late 1990s CBS Saturday morning series "The Weird Al Show," and numerous "AL-TV" specials for MTV and VH1, Yankovic has remained a staple of film and television with appearances on "The Simpsons, "30 Rock," and a musical production at the 2014 Primetime Emmy Awards. Most recently, he has guested on ABC's Galavant (as a singing monk), The Goldbergs (as the '80s version of himself), and IFC's "Comedy Bang! Bang!" as its new co-host and bandleader. This fall, he will be heard as the voice of the title character in Disney XD's new animated series "Milo Murphy's Law" (from the creators of "Phineas and Ferb"), following other voiceover work for "Gravity Falls," "Wander Over Yonder," "Adventure Time," and the DC animated feature "Batman vs. Robin."

His live performance on "George Fest: A Night to Celebrate the Music of George Harrison" was recently released across all formats, while Legacy Recordings is planning a career-spanning box-set featuring all 14 "Weird Al" Yankovic studio albums digitally remastered later this year. Also, NECA will debut the first in a line of retro-clothed Weird Al action figures in May.

In the last decade, Yankovic's music and videos have only become more popular. His 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood spawned the Billboard Top 10 single "White & Nerdy," the video for which spent two months at #1 on iTunes and garnered more than 150 million web hits. In 2009, he wrote, directed, and starred in the themed attraction "Al's Brain: A 3-D Journey through the Human Brain" featuring cameos by his mother-in-law and Paul McCartney. Two years later, in tandem with the release of his album Alpocalypse, Comedy Central aired the concert special "Weird Al" Yankovic Live: The Alpocalypse Tour," and released the unedited version of the concert on DVD and Blu-ray. In 2012, The Nerdist Channel debuted "Face 2 Face with "Weird Al" Yankovic," a web series where Yankovic got to "interview" some of his "close, personal friends" in the entertainment biz.

In 2014, Yankovic released his 14th studio album, Mandatory Fun, which would go on to win Best Comedy Album at the 2015 Grammy Awards. The album features parodies of some of the biggest hits of the previous year, including Pharrell Williams' "Happy" ("Tacky"), Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" ("Word Crimes"), Lorde's "Royals" ("Foil"), Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" ("Handy"), and Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" ("Inactive"). The album also features several inspired originals and pastiches ("Lame Claim to Fame," "Sports Song," "My Own Eyes," "Mission Statement," "First World Problems," and "Jackson Park Express") along with Yankovic's latest accordion-fueled medley, "NOW That's What I Call Polka!"

Mandatory Fun debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, the first time a comedy album debuted at #1 and the first time a comedy album reached the top of the chart in more than 50 years (the last one being Allan Sherman's 1963 release My Son, the Nut). On Spotify, Yankovic set the US record for having the most tracks from one album in the viral top 10 at one time, taking the first four spots. In addition, "Word Crimes" debuted in the Billboard Top 40, making Al one of only three people to have had Top 40 singles in each of the last four decades.

For Mandatory Fun, Al released eight music videos ("Tacky," "Word Crimes," "Foil," "Handy," "Sports Song," "Lame Claim to Fame," "First World Problems," and "Mission Statement") in eight days, resulting in more than 46 million views combined in its first week.

Yankovic added New York Times best-selling author to his resume with the release of his 2011 children's book, When I Grow Up. The following year came Weird Al: The Book, an illustrated hardcover on his life and career, followed by another Yankovic-penned kids' book, My New Teacher and Me!, in 2013. Among other publishing milestones, on April 21, 2015, Weird Al had the honor of becoming MAD Magazine's cover boy and the first guest editor in the magazine's 63-year history.

Al's social media fan base currently sits at over 4 million followers on Twitter (@alyankovic), 1.76 million fans on Facebook (weirdal), 183,000 followers on Instagram (alfredyankovic) and more than 970,000 subscribers on YouTube (alyankovic). www.WeirdAl.com

CAPA presents "WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC - THE MANDATORY WORLD TOUR

Wednesday, July 6, 8 pm

Palace Theatre (34 W. Broad St.)

Tickets are $30-$65 at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000. www.capa.com

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