'Weird Al' Yankovic will bring 'Mandatory Fun' tour to 100 cities, including Atlanta

BY MELISSA RUGGIERI

“Weird Al” Yankovic will make sure his fans have “Mandatory Fun” this summer with a world tour that will visit 100 cities.

The brilliant mind behind “Eat It,” “Like a Surgeon,” “Amish Paradise” and the recent “Word Crimes” and “Handy” will roll into Chastain Park Amphitheatre on June 20.

Tickets for the show will go on sale at 10 a.m. Jan. 30 ($39.50-$89.50) via all Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.com or by calling 1-800-745-3000. Special pre-sales at www.weirdal.com will launch at 10 a.m. Jan. 27.

The longtime musical master or song satires earned his first No. 1 album in July with “Mandatory Fun,” marking the first time in more than 50 years that a comedy album topped the charts.  The album is also up for a Grammy next month for best comedy album (Yankovic already has three on his resume).

For the release of “Mandatory Fun,” the springy-haired maestro embraced the viral video culture by unveiling eight videos in eight days, including parodies of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” (“Tacky”), Lorde’s “Royals” (“Foil”) and the brilliant recast of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (“Word Crimes”). The latter debuted in the Billboard Top 40, which puts Yankovic in the company of Madonna and Michael Jackson as the only artists to have had Top 40 singles in each of the last four decades.

The “Mandatory World Tour” will kick off May 12 in Las Vegas. Here is the complete itinerary.