“Hands down, it is the best concert you will ever see as long as you live. It is so fun… I was freaking out.” - Jimmy Fallon on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon
Fresh off the biggest year of his storied career, Weird Al Yankovic, the undisputed king of pop culture parody and a favourite with Australian audiences, will kick off 2016 with a three-state concert tour starting in Sydney on January 2 and then heading to Melbourne and Adelaide. Having just conquered over 100 cities in North America and Europe, the reigning monarch of musical merriment now officially expands his Mandatory World Tour to the Australian and New Zealand territories.
Special pre-sales will be held at weirdal.com starting September 28 at 9:00 am and will go on sale to the public Thursday, October 1 at 10:00am.
“Weird Al” Yankovic is the biggest-selling comedy recording artist in history. In a career spanning nearly four decades, he has won four Grammy Awards (with 15 nominations) and countless accolades for his parodies of many of the biggest songs and most important artists of the last four decades with classic hits including “Eat It” and “Fat” (Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and “Bad”), “Like A Surgeon” (Madonna’s “Like A Virgin), “Smells Like Nirvana (Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”), “Amish Paradise” (Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”), “White & Nerdy” (Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’”) and many others - all with full approval by the artists themselves.
The Mandatory World Tour follows in the wake of the massive success of his 14th studio album, Mandatory Fun. Released on July 15, 2014, the album features parodies of 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 Al’s latest accordion-fueled medley, “NOW That’s What I Call Polka!". For the release of the album, Al world-premiered eight videos in eight days on the Internet, cumulatively amassing over 46 million views in the first week. Mandatory Fun was the first comedy album to top the U.S. Billboard charts in over 50 years (Alan Sherman’s My Son The Nut held the distinction until then), and the first comedy album ever in history to debut at #1. In addition, “Word Crimes” debuted in the Billboard Top 40, making Al one of only three artists to have had Top 40 singles in each of the last four decades (the other two are Michael Jackson and Madonna). The album debuted at #9 in Australia, and earned Al his fourth career Grammy Award, for Best Comedy Album.
