Marisa Uhls | Reporter
March 18, 2016; 1 p.m.
Lindenwood University students watched in awe as Josh “The Trickster” McVicar performed more than just card tricks at his magic show Monday, March 14.
McVicar met with students in the Evans Commons Dining Hall to show off some of his tricks prior to his show at 7:30 p.m. in the Anheuser-Busch Leadership Room in the Spellmann Center. After seeing his magic, students wanted to see more.
“I expect to laugh like I did when he was in Evans earlier, that’s why I decided to come,” said student Avori Henderson.
McVicar opened the show dancing and lip syncing to a Top 40 songs such as Adele’s “Hello” while performing subtle tricks, such as making a permanent marker disappear and joking about pop culture icons such as the Kardashians and Miley Cyrus. These jokes, along with his sexual innuendos, resonated with the students.
For one of his tricks, McVicar asked for two male volunteers from the back row to come to the front of the room. He had them count out some cards from a deck. McVicar handed the first volunteer an envelope and asked him to look inside it to make sure that it was empty.
“Now stick that where no one would think to look,” McVicar asked instructed him.
The first volunteer stuck the empty envelope down the front of his pants. The second volunteer repeated the same action when he was handed his own envelope. McVicar then waved a cloth over the front of each of their pants then asked them to reach into their pants to get the envelope. When they opened the envelopes, they were filled with the cards that they had counted out previously.
The students were wide eyed and on the edge of their seat during each trick, but the crowd’s favorite trick was when McVicar made LU student Shelby Quinn fear that her phone was being crushed.
McVicar dressed Quinn up in country attire including a safety orange vest, hat, fake beard and a duck call. Quinn could not help but laugh during the process. She then willingly gave her phone to McVicar as he placed it into a brown paper bag. She trusted that nothing was actually going to happen to her phone until he pulled out a hammer and appeared to smash the concealed phone to pieces.
“I actually screamed a little when he smashed it and I got really scared because I just bought that phone,” said Quinn.
McVicar picked up the bag and shook it. The crowd gasped upon hearing the pieces inside. Later, he revealed that the iPhone was “transported” into a glass bottle sitting a few feet away. After he cracked the bottle open, Quinn was thrilled to have her phone back.
The last trick of the night required a lot of participation from the audience. McVicar began by throwing a beach ball into the audience. The first person who caught the ball had to pick a number between one and 1000, the second had to choose any animal with four legs and the third person had to think of any object. McVicar tried to guess what each volunteer was thinking and failed.
To redeem himself, he asked if anyone in the audience had a red can. A crowd member, who had been given the can at the beginning of the show, stood up and yelled that she had one. When she looked inside the can, there was a piece of paper inside. As she read the paper aloud she revealed the correct answers: the number 646, a giraffe and shoes.
At the end of the show, McVicar received a standing ovation from the visibly astonished crowd.