Thursday, February 19th
Turnpike Troubadours at the Granada in Lawrence
So you’re not a “country music” fan? Me neither, really. I mean, I love Willie. And I can get into a ripping pedal steel for sure. But I don’t own a 10 gallon hat or chew tobacco or anything. So I surprised even myself a little bit when the Troubadours starting growing on me. I never really meant to see them, honest, I just stumbled across them one afternoon at the Wakarusa Festival a few years back.
They turned out to be one of my favorite acts of the weekend. Just solid folk-roots songs with a ripping fiddle, stand up bass, and a dash of small-town red dirt, all projected through the subtle drawl of their young front man, Evan Felkner.
And despite the fact that this show is on a Thursday, don’t wait. The Troubadours have been gaining momentum for the better part of a year now, last time pretty much selling out Liberty Hall, so it should be a packed affair with cowgirls aplenty.
Saturday, February 21st
Martin Sexton at the Granada in Lawrence
The Granada keeps killing it, extending the roots thing into the weekend with a longer tenured folk soul singer, Martin Sexton. An elder statesman, perhaps? Also, folk-soul, you say?
Yeah. Sexton’s catalog is as diverse as his elastic voice that stretches from impossibly high falsetto to growly grumble, to jazzy scat cat. He’s one of those performers that could entertain a crowd with a broken kazoo. So when you give him an acoustic guitar and add those one-of-a-kind vocals – let alone his full touring band – it’s tough to look away.
