Watch Weird Al Yankovic Make His "Guitar Playing Debut"

"Weird" Al Yankovic is now a guitarist...or so he says.

As the song parody paragon told an audience at New York City's Apollo Theater, despite his decades in the music industry he never bothered to learn the guitar until recently. 

"My whole life I never learned to play the guitar," he said. "I figured, you know, I've been in entertainment, I've been a recording artist and a musician for most of my life, and I should know how to play the guitar. So for the last several months, I've been studying and learning how to play the guitar so that I could debut it at the Apollo on this next song."

Yankovic then joked that he and his band couldn't think of a better way to honor Harlem's historic Apollo Theater than by playing Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl."

Check out the performance in the video above.

As Yankovic's band begins to play, the singer/accordion player conspicuously does not have a guitar in his hands. 

One verse goes by. The chorus goes by. Another verse. Another chorus and still no guitar. 

When the bridge arrives, Yankovic reveals a guitar he had slung behind his back. 

He then goes on to play Young's single-note open-string guitar solo with his would-be fretting hand in the air for about 12 bars before the song ends.

Now, for those of us disappointed that Yankovic didn't pull out something a bit more impressive, consider the lack of extra noise from the other strings while he was playing.

The comedian might not be using his fretting hand at all, but the fact that he could play that part with one hand and keep the other strings from ringing out suggests that he actually does know how to play the guitar.

Although, from this fan-shot video, we can't see whether the guitar is even strung up with all six-strings. 

If it's not, that would certainly explain the lack of noise, why he kept the guitar behind his back for most of the song and, of course, part of the joke.

Yankovic and his band have been throwing at least one cover song into their set each night on the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, where the singer and his band are focusing on their catalog of original music and deep cuts which they don't get to play on larger-scale tours.

Get all the tour dates here. 

Photo: Getty Images