Ladysmith Black Mambazo Liberty Hall, Lawrence Thursday, March 13, 2014 Part history lesson disguised as entertainment and part life-affirming chill session, Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s Liberty Hall recital commanded a captivated audience. Normally, when a band or performer proclaims they want to bring about world peace through music, eyes begin to roll. However, with a 50-year track record that includes singing…
Post-Traumatic Confetti Disorder by PHOX from Elder on Vimeo.
Friday started with a bang – a really fucking loud bang, in the form of local rock heroes Radkey. The nearly legal trio of brothers kicked off the Spin Day Party at Stubb’s outdoors on the main stage around noon, and seeing the boys repping KC on such a prestigious stage brought a little blooming flower of pride to my heart. For…
Since acquiring and tearing down the old Mission Center Mall in 2005, Cameron Group LLC’s Tom Valenti has talked a lot about the great things in store for the intersection of Shawnee Mission Parkway and Johnson Drive. But so far, all he has done is push some dirt around. But even the dirt is at a standstill today, as it has been since…
If you’re longing for a traditional Irish breakfast in the days leading up to St. Patrick’s Day – Monday, March 17 – but don’t want to actually make the combination of eggs, bacon, bangers (British slang for sausages), Irish soda bread, fried potatoes and Irish tea, the iconic Browne’s Irish Marketplace (3300 Pennsylvania) begins serving its version of an Emerald…
Tough talk from whoever this guy is. There is a show on Spike TV called Bar Rescue. As I understand it, the host, a “bar expert” named Jon Taffer – he’s a Goodfellas version of Gordon Ramsay – goes around to struggling bars across the country, humiliates the owners and employees, and then shows them how to turn around their…
For the full slideshow from SXSW Day Three, go here. Aside from acting as SXSW headquarters, the Convention Center also boasts two generally well-curated official day stages. This is kind of odd because the stages are erected inside ballrooms, and although the sound isn’t bad, it doesn’t feel especially showcase-y. Some bands can make any venue work – others, not so…
In just a few days, William Shatner turns 83. So your $75 Captain Kirk autograph at this weekend’s Planet Comicon amortizes to a fairly cheap honorarium: about 90 cents for each year of the Canadian legend’s life. Shatner moderates a Star Trek: The Next Generation panel that includes pretty much everybody from that show except Patrick Stewart. It’s the Sunday…
There is no other time of the year that compares to what is about to take place next week. That of course is March Madness and the NCAA Tournament. As conference championship week dwindles down to a close the NCAA Tournament bracket is quickly filling up as teams continue punching their tickets everyday. Presently there are 13 teams who have…
The Boulder, Colorado-based Big Red F Restaurant Group is planning to open a Jax Fish House, one of the company’s seven culinary concepts, in one of the two restaurant spaces in the Polsinelli building at 900 West 48th Place. There are already four Jax Fish Houses in the Denver metro; the founder of the company, chef Dave Query, told The…
For the full slideshow from SXSW Day Two, click here. Sometime in the early afternoon on Wednesday, I managed to rouse myself from the comfort of my bed, feeling that I was perhaps more mentally prepared for the SXSW spread than I had been the day before. This time, at least, I had a vague agenda. First on my list: Jessica Lea…
Sporting Kansas City fans won’t like to hear it, but it’s the truth: A blown call by the officiating squad played a big role in preserving the hometown team’s 1-0 win over Cruz Azul in CONCACAF Champion’s League play. Midfielder Benny Feilhaber should have been ejected from the game and Cruz Azul awarded a penalty shot for a flagrant handball…
Kansas City’s Metro Pro Wrestling went on hiatus in August. Metro Pro owner Chris Gough told The Pitch at that time that he wasn’t done promoting wrestling shows. He just didn’t know when and where his next show would take place. After seven months, Gough finally announced his next show, scheduled for June 14 when Metro Pro will return to the Turner Rec Center…
Blazing across the screen like a comet of incompetence, Need for Speed is an actioner so dumb that it numbs your mind. As much as the movie wants to be an entertaining pileup of car chases and awesome crashes, its brazen soullessness is impossible to shake off. I’ve never seen a movie so cool with its own overwhelming idiocy. Based…
Four members of the wealthy Wyeth clan, wearing color-coordinated tennis outfits, take polite sips of water and swap brittle jokes about WMDs and the war on terror. Palm fronds, not snow, brush against the windows of their pristine living room. A small Christmas tree brims with cold white lights. The Unicorn Theatre’s production of Other Desert Cities opens onto what…
Ida McBeth is a KC jazz fixture and a local icon. Since the 1980s, when she owned weekends at the Point, she has been raising club roofs with sass and swing — rollicking with some Stevie Wonder–style R&B, belting the blues, putting her soul into her own take on a jazz or pop classic. But there has been scant opportunity…
