On April 2, the Vibrant Arena at the MARK will be filled with the thrilling sounds of corridos, bandas, and romanticos when the Moline amphitheater presents a night with the touring artists of Los Dos Carnales, the norteño musicians whose prolific output includes the release of three studio albums and three EPs in 2021 alone.

The performers at Sunday's performance of director Curt Wollan's production shined, as they most always do at this theatre, and the jokes – most of them innuendos and phallic allusions – were actually pretty funny, and delivered well.

A quartet of rock, punk, and metal acts will take the stage at East Moline venue The Rust Belt on April 6 with the area arrival of the Nu-Metal Madness Tour 2, an exhilarating night for the genre's fans boasting a lineup of touring artists (hed)p.e., Crazy Town X, Adema, and Tantric.

Best known for his tenure with the Southern hip-hop ensemble Rehab, country rapper Demun Jones headlines an April 2 solo concert at East Moline venue The Rust Belt, the artist's songs on his album Jones Country lauded by The Front Row Report as "loaded with country lyrics with some insane rap beats and rap skills that can stand with the best of them."

A band whose whiskey vocals, masterful harmonica, and keen original songs were perfected by decades of house parties and honky tonks, The Dig 3 plays the Moline Viking Club on April 1 in a concert co-presented by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, the group composed of blues and roots masters Andrew Duncanson on guitar and vocals, Ronnie Shellist on harp, and multi-instrumentalist Gerry Hundt.

An exhilarating party-rock band composed of of Mike Hanford, Jeff Dutton, and Tim Kalpakis of Los Feliz, California, the Sloppy Boys headline an April 4 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the musicians additionally beloved as members of the television and touring sketch-comedy group The Birthday Boys.

Lauded by Billboard magazine for their "catchy, danceable beats paired with melancholy lyricism and shimmery melodies," the indie rockers of Plastic Picnic headline a March 29 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the musicians also praised by NPR as an ensemble that "has a real knack for making synthesizers sound epic."

With the Quad City Symphony Orchestra's conclusions to its 2022-23 Masterworks season on April 1 and 2, the gifted classical musicians will not only celebrate one of history's greatest composers in Mahler One, but will extend their tribute to Gustav with a tribute to Sergei, as the concert's repertoire will also boast a ravishing performance of a Prokofiev violin concerto boasting featured soloist and QCSO concertmaster Naha Greenholtz.

Composed of Dave “Dixie” Collins, Dave “Shep” Shepherd, and Ramzi Ateyeh – the former two having co-founded the group a quarter-century ago – the fired-up sludge-metal musicians of Weedeater headline an April 5 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the group's most recent album Goliathan described by Angry Metal Guy as “an intoxicating examination of Southern culture and arguably the most tongue-in-cheek approximation of their sludgy, stoner sound thus far delivered.”

A delightful evening of laughter, music, and support is sure to be delivered in the April 1 fundraiser hosted by Gilda's Club of the Quad Cities, with Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center housing bestselling author and Impractical Jokers comedian James "Murr" Murray and the gifted musicians of the Quad Cities' Soul Storm in the second-annual Live from QC … It's Saturday Nite!

A Midwestern comedian, New York Times bestselling author, Emmy-winning journalist, and musician whose content for his various social platforms has amassed more than five million followers, Charlie Berens brings his "Midwest Survival Guide Tour" to the University of Dubuque's Heritage Center on April 23, the Wisconsin native famed for his appearances on Comedy Central, Funny or Die, and MTV News.

Described by the New York Times as "effervescent and entertaining," and by Online America as an all-ages show that delivered "fresh bursts of energy," Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse opens its 2023 season of high-spirited family musicals with Junie B.'s Essential Survival Guide to School, an adaptation of Barbara Park's beloved children's-book series about the riotous and winning young Junie B. Jones.

Lauded by Rolling Stone as “absolutely incredible” and Broadway World as “an eye-popping display of storytelling that's like nothing else you've ever seen,” the electrified talents of Lightwire Theater bring their touring smash The Adventures of Tortoise & Hare: The Next Gen to the University of Dubuque's Heritage Center on April 1, an unforgettable event by the America's Got Talent competitors whom judge Sharon Osbourne declared “spectacular in every sense of the word.”

One of the most ticklish and tuneful operettas in theatrical history comes to the University of Dubuque's Heritage Center on March 26 with the touring presentation The Pirates of Penzance, the beloved Gilbert & Sullivan masterpiece enjoying a rich and radiant new staging by the artists of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players.

Held in conjunction with the Figge Art Museum's popular exhibit Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls 1800 to 1960, noted dress Historian Nicole Rudolph, on April 1, will engage in the first of a two-part overview on the seismic shifts that transformed women’s clothing between 1800 and 1960, with an emphasis on developments in women’s athletic wear.

A Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film that was also named the 30th greatest film of all time in the 2022 Sight & Sound critics’ poll, Céline Sciamma's French romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire will enjoy a Figge Art Museum screening on April 6 in conjunction with the exhibition Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls 1800 to 1960, the Davenport venue's latest movie series highlighting award-winning, groundbreaking feature films that celebrate the cinematic achievements of women.

To download a PDF of the puzzle, click here.

Everything that's wrong with the super-sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods is effectively baked into the title. Because if there's one thing that fans of the 2019 film (myself among them) don't want, or at least shouldn't want, it's fury – not when the original's appeal was so firmly grounded in the goofy, amiable, touching, and refreshingly inconsequential.

The “Twitter Files” are explosive revelations of political censorship by a social-media giant colluding with the federal government and certain activist groups.

ComEd has long been a source of political patronage. The company’s Deferred Prosecution Agreement with federal prosecutors even references how former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s “old-fashioned patronage system” obtained ComEd meter-reader jobs for its precinct workers.

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