Slack Key and Weird Al

Harold O.

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Saw Weird Al Yankovic at Ventura Theater last night. That man puts on a great show. Went for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Hit all the old and new stuff. Very entertaining and clean.

On the t-shirt table was a flyer for Jim "Kimo" West. He plays lead guitar for Al. He's also an accomplished slack key guitar player. http://www.jimkimowest.com I didn't know that. For all the hopping around he does with the Al stage show, slack key must provide a calming respite.

I talked with him a bit after the show and told him about our Canogahana Players uke meeting that morning. He thought that was cool. Real nice guy. Says they aren't planning on working a uke into the show yet, but he does play a song or two with open tuning.
 
I've seen Weird Al live three times, and I would easily put any of those shows in the top 10 concerts I have ever seen. Actually probably in the top 5. Come to think of it, the only show's I've seen that I would say were better than Al would be Rush last week at Red Rocks (an AWESOME concert in every sense of the word), Rush in '02, and Paul McCartney in '05. I can't say enough good stuff about Weird Al concerts, and I tell everyone I can to go see him if they ever get the chance. And I DID actually know that Jim West plays slack key guitar, and also uke. I heard him interviewed on some uke podcast a while back (don't remember which one). Among other things, he talked about using uke on some Weird Al song, but as they were recording it, Al decided he wanted banjo instead.
 
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