Ira Glass at the Lied Center review

For the first few moments of his show in Lawrence on Saturday night, Ira Glass spoke from a pitch-black stage to the capacity crowd at the Lied Center.

In the dark, he played audio clips of high school girls, caught in gang violence, talking about the possibility of being shot on a street corner. In other mediums, Glass pointed out, those girls might be seen as punks. But the power of radio is that you can’t see them at all. “On the radio, if somebody is talking and they mean it and it means something to them, you can’t help but have it go to your heart,” he said.

During his nearly two-hour talk, the host of This American Life explained why his show is addictive and how he reels his listeners in. It’s not just about finding the right people; it’s about abandoning the emotional straight-jacket of traditional news.

“I want to start by talking about something that I wish somebody had said to me during college: the importance of amusing yourself,” Glass said.