By Chip Chandler — Producer
Here's a quick take on your 10 best entertainment bets in the next 10 days.
1. Amarillo Sod Poodles
The Soddies will continue their playoff run with a 7 p.m. Sept. 5 game at Hodgetown, 715 S. Buchanan St.
2. Friends of Fogelberg
Country music's in the air for this year's annual prostate-cancer benefit concert, featuring more than two dozen Amarillo musicians. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 6 in the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Buchanan St.
3. Up in the Air for Family Care
The 10th annual hot-air balloon festival will move to Starlight Ranch Event Center, 1415 Sunset Drive. Festivities, which will begin at 4 p.m. Sept. 7, will include a balloon glow and balloon rides (weather permitting), food trucks, bounce houses, kids' activities and music from KISS tribute act Destroyer.
4. Good Times Celebration Barbecue Cook-Off
Taste buds will be tingling at the 24th annual Amarillo Chamber of Commerce festivities at 5 p.m. Sept. 12 in downtown Amarillo.
5. Yellow City Sounds Live
Brothers in music and brothers-in-law in real life, Matt Martindale and Charlie Shafter will swap songs and stories in an intimate concert at 7 p.m. Sept. 12 in the Panhandle PBS studios, 2408 S. Jackson St.
6. Legally Blonde: The Musical
Oh my god, you guys! Amarillo Little Theatre will open its Mainstage season with this bubbly musical, to be staged Sept. 12 to 29.
7. Songs for a New World
West Texas A&M University will open its 2019-20 season with this song cycle featuring works by the great Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years), to be staged Sept. 12 to 22.
8. Hustlers
Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Lili Reinhart, Keke Palmer, Cardi B, Lizzo and more star as strippers who turn the table on their crooked Wall Street clients in this based-on-a-true-story film opening Sept. 13. Opening Sept. 6 is the much-anticipated It Chapter Two. Also opening Sept. 13: the star-studded drama The Goldfinch, based on the Donna Tartt novel. Special engagements will include You Are Here, a documentary screening Sept. 11 about a Newfoundland town that temporarily housed thousands of airline passengers temporarily displaced by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; and Blink of an Eye, a NASCAR documentary screening Sept. 12 about the friendship between racers Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Sr. Plus, actor Damian Chapa will appear at a special screening of Blood In, Blood Out on Sept. 7 at Premiere Cinemas Westgate Mall 6, 7701 W. Interstate 40.
9. Amarillo Tri-State Fair & Rodeo
Yee-haw! The annual festivities return Sept. 14 to the Tri-State Fairgrounds, 3301 S.E. 10th Ave., featuring food on a stick, bucking broncs, vendors, midway games and tons of hand-crafted goodness. The annual parade will begin at 9 a.m. Sept. 14 in downtown Amarillo, and the first concert of the fair will feature Red Dirt pioneers The Great Divide at 9:30 p.m. Sept. 14.
10. Roger Creager and Sam Riggs
The popular Texas country stars (see here and here) will give a joint concert at 8 p.m. Sept. 14 at Starlight Ranch Event Center, 1415 Sunset Drive, in a benefit for the Life and Liberty Outdoors Foundation. Other concerts of note: the Esquire Jazz Huge Band at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 5, Brazilian guitarist Richard Miller at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 and Polk Street Jazz at 9 p.m. Sept. 14 at Esquire Jazz Club, 626 S. Polk St.; bluegrass band Wood & Wire at 10 p.m. Sept. 5 and Canyon country band The RagTown Chiefs at 10 p.m. Sept. 13 at the Golden Light Cantina, 2908 S.W. Sixth Ave.; Americana singer-songwriter Ross Cooper at 10 p.m. Sept. 5, Americana singer-songwriter Max Stalling at 10 p.m. Sept. 6, Americana singer-songwriter Chris Knight at 10 p.m. Sept. 12 and Texas country band The Powell Brothers at 10 p.m. Sept. 13 at Hoots Pub, 2424 Hobbs Road; Americana pioneer Ray Wylie Hubbard at 8 p.m. Sept. 6 at Starlight Ranch; Dallas bluesman Rockin' Robert Tomberlin and the Rockin' R Band at 8 p.m. Sept. 6 and former Amarillo rock band Mind Plays at 6 p.m. Sept. 12 at Smokey Joe's, 2903 S.W. Sixth Ave.; former Amarillo rock band Mind Plays at 10 p.m. Sept. 6 and Amarillo rock band Hangman at 10 p.m. Sept. 14 at Skooterz, 4100 Bushland Blvd. Mary Lyn Halley and Dean Yates of Insufficient Funds at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 at Bar Z Winery, 19290 Farm-to-Market Road 1541; country star Gary Allan at 8 p.m. Sept. 7 in the Amarillo Civic Center Complex Auditorium, 401 S. Buchanan St.; piano group Duo Miroirs at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 10 at Amarillo College Concert Hall Theatre on the Washington Street campus; and former Amarillo rock band Mind Plays at 10 p.m. Sept. 13 and Amarillo country act The Jack Cryver Band at 10 p.m. Sept. 14 at Whiskey River, 4001 S.W. 51st Ave.
Chip Chandler is a producer for Panhandle PBS and a member of GALECA. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and on Facebook.
