thoughts on branson, missouri, u s of a

i've been wanting to visit branson for a long time. land of the ozarks. and the entertainment capital of the midwest. so when tori and family moved here, well, now we have a real reason to visit.

branson's about 5 hours from oklahoma city. for most people. first trip here, however, we made a wrong turn, no, we failed to make a turn, and were nearly in kansas before we realized we'd aimed away from tulsa. for those of you who don't know, tulsa's on the route to branson. trip took 6 1/2 hours.

next trip, well, didn't make any wrong turns, and turns out branson's only about 5 hours from home. not such a bad trip. pretty much like the one we used to make from flagstaff to yuma. only much more interesting scenery. trees instead cactus. grass instead of sand.

so here we are now on our third visit. hon has a hard time staying away from our newest grandson. and while i think he's a pretty neat kid, he's not yet able to hold a baseball bat, so i'm more entertained by the older two boys. games of checkers, chess, and a trip over to one of the local go-cart tracks. that's a lot of fun.

now we're here for father's day weekend. boog sent me a gift card for father's day with instructions to go out and have some fun in branson. that should be easy. branson - the entertainment capital of the midwest.

i chose the beatles. i know we all thought the beatles were long gone. in fact, two have died. but like elvis, they're always somewhere. i caught a glimpse of them once at disneyland. but other than that, i'd never seen the beatles up close and personal.

my expectation was that the live show would cost about forty bucks a person, and we'd be able to see the fellas on stage clearly if we took binoculars. wrong on both counts. tickets cost a whopping ten bucks each. ten bucks each! that was with the discount that the branson show places give locals. i don't know what the cost would be without locals. but with tori living here, ten bucks each! wow.

then when we got to the theater, maybe i should spell that "theatre", since the show had a bit of a british flair, and got our tickets, we found we were seated in row "h". row "h", for those not familiar with the english alphabet, is eight rows off the stage, with row "a" being first, "b" being second, "c" third, and so forth. row "h". eight rows off the stage. close enough to see really well, but no so close the loud amps vibrate your earlobes.

now this show was put together by louise harrison. louise harrison is the older sister of a guy named george harrison. and if i have to spell it out for you, george harrison was one of the four guys that comprised "the beatles". and louise was there backstage when the fab four first appeared on the ed sullivan show. and she knew them really well.

so she put together this show. she hand picked the performers (who, truth be told, are not really the beatles. rather, they term themselves the "liverpool legends".) and let me tell you, while they really wouldn't fool you into thinking they were the original beatles, if you squinted just right you could imagine that they are. and if you just close your eyes and listen you'd swear they were. for they really sang beatles songs well. very well, indeed.

and from a different prospective than you normally see. because louise harrison put this show together, they actually made george music more a part of the show than most would. in fact, george songs pretty much equalled those sung by paul and john. ringo only had three, but that was pretty much true to form.

all told, this could have been the most entertaining musical performance i've ever seen. it was nice to know the songs, the words. to be able to sing along if we wanted. and a nice, intimate setting. up close and personal with the boys from liverpool. and then afterwards they came to the lobby, along with louise harrison, and mingled with the crowd. signed autographs. chatted amicably. and actually made you feel they appreciated the fact that you came to see their show. and surprisingly, during the social hour louise harrison was the only one with a hint of a british accent. the boys spoke very clear american english. and in all of our visits to branson i've seen these yellow vw bugs running around (the new version) with advertising for this show on them. well, these yellow "beetles" are driven around town by the "beatles" of the liverpool legends. clever.

so what i really have to say is, if you're coming to branson, see these guys. excellent show. probably some of the other shows are excellent as well. but the summertime weather - not so much. bring air conditioning.