Win FREE Tickets to Jim “Kimo” West @ Proctors on Saturday Afternoon

Weird Al Yankovic is brings his Mandatory World Tour to Proctors on Saturday (September 17), and if you’re looking for something fun to do before the concert, well, why not to to a concert by Weird Al’s longtime guitarist Jim “Kimo” West?

As it turns out, West – who’s been playing guitar with Yankovic for 32 years – is also one of the foremost Hawaiian slack key guitarists when he isn’t applying his fretboard work to the superbly silly song parodies of his boss.

So while he’s in Schenectady playing the Weird Al concert, he’s going to play a solo guitar concert of his own earlier that same day. West will perform his Hawaiian Slack Key Summer’s End Concert at 2pm on Saturday at Proctors’ Education Center.

West is a veteran of Hawaii’s famed slack key festivals and has shared the stage with almost all the world’s top slack key players over the years. He’s a Hawaii Music Awards winner and has been twice nominated for a Na Hoku Hanohano (the Hawaiian Grammy). His latest album, Guitar Stories, goes beyond slack key, exploring other genres like West African guitar, Middle Eastern Music and Americana.

Tickets are on sale now, priced at $15 in advance; $20 at the door.

BUT WAIT… We’re giving away a pair of FREE TICKETS to the Jim “Kimo” West concert to a lucky Nippertown reader. To enter the contest, just post a comment below. Please leave your email address, too. We won’t publish it, but we’ll use it to contact you if you win. The deadline to enter is 12:30pm on Friday (September 16), and the winner will be selected at random and notified on Friday afternoon. Enter today! And good luck! Congratulations to the winner, who has been notified by email.