Published: 05 March 2020

Courtesy photoELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times

The halls and walls of the Seward County Activity Center will be filled with high-energy country and rock music in early April thanks to a pair of groups making their way to Liberal. 

The Josh Abbott Band, with opener Lendon James and The Highway 34 Band, will be performing at the Seward County Activity Center Friday, April 10. Tickets for the show are $30 for general admission and are available at Seward County Community College, The Crazy House and at KSCB-The Legend  radio station in Liberal, with proceeds going to the SCCC scholarship funds. 

“The people are amazing and the hospitality we see from people when we're in that area is just outstanding. Our fans in that area are just amazing and they travel to see us and hear us play, so that's just amazing,” Josh Abbott Band guitarist Caleb Keeter said. “We all love touring in general and we've enjoyed everywhere we've visited, but that area just has such a different energy and we love it. The best part is show itself, honestly, because we have a great time playing for people in that area because our audiences really appreciate us making the trip up from Texas, which is where we do most of our touring and stuff, so it's always really fun being in that area because the crowds are so awesome.”

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Published: 27 February 2020

Courtesy photoELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times

As I’ve mentioned in this column before, I’m a big musical theater fan and while I’m working, I like to seek out cast recordings to shows in order to help pass the time as well as help with the creative juices. 

I was watching a video by one of the YouTube personalities I follow, Katherine Steele, about songs in musical theater that are sad and overall gut-punchers and after watching that video, I got to thinking, ‘There are a TON of songs in musical theater I haven’t entirely gotten over either!’ So I decided this week to make a list of some songs in musical theater I can’t listen to very often lest I become a sobbing, messy puddle at work and/or at home. Like with all of my lists, I am not out to push aside one show or another, these are just my personal thoughts. 

“For Good” (Wicked)

I got introduced to “Wicked” back when I was in middle school since we were playing a medley of songs from the show in band, and even back then, the show’s next-to-last song was like an emotional gut punch, and it was even more so when I finally saw it performed live back in 2013. In this scene, our main witches Glinda and Elphaba are saying their final goodbyes to each other, and the music and lyrics are so well done and so well crafted, and the emotion and passion in the scene are so well performed, you can’t help but shed some ugly tears for these two former best friends say goodbye. I choke up literally every time I hear this song and that will probably be the case forever. 

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Published: 20 February 2020

Locke siblings Kinsey, Tyler and Bode share a discovery during this scene from Netflix’s “Locke and Key” series. Courtesy photoELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times

I’m a fan of a good mystery series or novel and recently, as I was searching for some entertainment on Netflix, I came across the series “Locke and Key,” which is an adaptation from a graphic novel series by Gabriel Rodríguez about the Locke family as they move to the small town of Matheson, Mass. after the murder of their father. Throughout the season, the family discovers keys throughout their new home that give them new abilities and unlock several doors in their new lives, so to speak, all while battling an demon who wants the keys for its own evil purposes. I watched the season over the course of a few days and overall, I felt rather “meh” after finishing it. 

One of the things that has to be addressed about the show is the scenery and location because it’s gorgeous. The show was filmed throughout a handful of spots in Toronto, Ontario, and Nova Scotia and those locations end up being a great choice because everything is just so pretty and picturesque, so the show definitely has a lot going for it in that department. I particularly liked the scenes that take place near the ocean because again, it’s just such a cinematic and picturesque place. I also liked the house that was used for the Locke family’s new home, the set designs for that were also very well done. 

One major problem I had with the show was its tone, because it was rather inconsistent. For the parts that deal with the mystery and macabre of what’s going on in the Locke family’s lives (in particular when the functions of the respective keys are discovered), they’re done very well and those parts are actually one of the few factors that kept me watching. The parts where the family is dealing with the death of their father are also done well and do a good job portraying grief rather accurately. Among all of that, however, there are also several sub-plots (including daughter Kinsey becoming involved in a friend’s film project and the handful of different teen angst/love story plotlines) that are just annoying and serve little other purpose than filler to pass the time – if there’s some teen fiction cliché you can think of, they put it into this show. I feel like if those sub-plots and other “fat” (so to speak) had been trimmed from the show, it could have been outstanding. 

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