07/13/11 – Center for the Arts – \”Weird Al\’ Yankovic

The Alpocalypse Tour

“Weird Al” Yankovic is the biggest selling comedy recording artist of all time. Few would have guessed that Yankovic, who as an awkward, accordion-playing teenager got his start sending in homemade tapes to the Dr. Demento Radio Show, would go on to enjoy a varied and successful career that is now entering its fourth decade. Over that time he has won 3 Grammys (with 12 nominations), racked up 31 Gold and Platinum Albums, and won countless awards and accolades for Weird Al classics like “Eat It,” “Like a Surgeon,” “Fat,” “Smells Like Nirvana,” “Amish Paradise” and “The Saga Begins.” Yankovic is also well-known for his cult-hit feature film UHF (1989), his late ‘90s CBS Saturday morning series The Weird Al Show and the numerous AL-TV specials that he’s made for MTV and VH1 over the years. His previous album Straight Outta Lynwood (2006), the highest-charting of his career, spawned the Billboard Top 10 single “White & Nerdy,” the video of which spent two months at #1 on iTunes and garnered over 100 million hits on the Internet.

Since then, Yankovic has performed 240 concerts throughout North America, Australia and Europe. He released his greatest hits package The Essential “Weird Al” Yankovic (Legacy), directed the themed attraction “Al’s Brain: A 3-D Journey through the Human Brain” (featuring cameos by everybody from Fabio to Paul McCartney) and accumulated over 2 million followers on Twitter. And with the recent release of his children’s book When I Grow Up (HarperCollins), Al now adds “New York Times Bestselling Author” to his resume.

He is touring in support of his first full-length studio album in nearly five years entitled Alpocalypse.