Steely Dan WinStar Casino, Thackerville, Oklahoma Friday, July 18, 2014 At Winstar Casino in Oklahoma last Friday night, Steely Dan marched in with a sophisticated army of 13 musicians armed to mellow you out. The band’s music always has a peculiarly lukewarm character, not quite uptempo enough to rock out…
The Mavericks The Granada Theater, Dallas Saturday, July 19, 2014 Rarely does a band get back together and return to anything close to the form it once had. But judging by their performance Saturday night at the Granada Theater, the Mavericks are the exception to the rule. Since reforming in…
Lady Gaga American Airlines Center, Dallas Thursday, July 17, 2014 Who is Lady Gaga? It’s a question she may have asked herself in recent months. Certainly the popular narrative would have you think so. In spite of releasing an album,artPOP, that went to No. 1 late last year, the buzz…
Mötley Crüe With Alice Cooper Gexa Energy Pavilion, Dallas Wednesday, July 16, 2014 Dallas loves Mötley Crüe. A nearly sold out show, thousands of people showed up at Gexa Energy Pavilion on Wednesday night to say farewell to a legendary band. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the heat, they sang every song…
10,000 Maniacs With Emily Elbert, 7 p.m. Thursday, July 17, at the Kessler Theater, 1230 W. Davis St., 214-272-8346 or thekessler.org, $22.50-$40 It’s hard to say something bad about a band that’s been around for 33 years, especially one as nonthreatening as 10,000 Maniacs. You know, they’re that band that’s…
KISS With Def Leppard Gexa Energy Pavilion, Dallas Sunday, July 13, 2014 Paul Stanley can fly. He soared over the audience, a star shooting across a starlit sky Sunday night at the Gexas Energy Pavilion. He landed on a spinning platform, while a demon, a cat and his Space Ace…
Polyphonic Spree With Sam Lao and Quaker City Nighthawks Club Dada, Dallas Saturday, July 12, 2014 A white curtain shrouds the band in anticipation. Ribbons hang around the stage’s perimeter and along the fences in Club Dada’s backyard. The ribbons are colorful, every spectrum of ROYGBIV is touched. Magically, as…
Erykah Badu WinStar World Casino, Thackerville, Okalahoma Saturday, July 12, 2014 From Oak Cliff to just over the Oklahoma border to WinStar World Casino it’s just about 80 miles, roughly 90 minutes if you get lucky and there’s no traffic. From Dallas proper it’s an hour and from Denton it’s…
Summerland Tour WIth Everclear, Soul Asylum, Eve 6 and Spacehog South Side Ballroom, Dallas Friday, July 11, 2014 The 1990s and early 2000s weren’t exactly the golden years of rock music, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t plenty of it. As bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden and Hole set…
Queen + Adam Lambert American Airlines Center, Dallas Thursday, July 10, 2014 English band Queen is like a solar system that lost its star. Late singer Freddie Mercury was an icon of showmanship, passion and theatricality, the ultimate performer and arguably the most talented vocalist in rock history. When you’ve…
So let’s get this straight: right when it’s starting to resemble something akin to a real Texas summer, with some triple-digit temperatures in the forecast, we start hearing about a polar vortex? Well, anything’s possible. And with the World Cup drawing to a close this weekend, we might all be…
It’s hard to imagine a time when KISS didn’t exist. A friend wearing a Gene Simmons mask introduced me to their music when I was five years old, living in Germany. The Berlin Wall hadn’t fallen yet. He revealed the KISS Double Platinum as if he were holding the holy…
Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen Hold My Beer and Watch This Tour House of Blues, Dallas Wednesday, July 9, 2014 An unusually functional prop set the stage, both literally and figuratively, for last night’s Randy Rogers’ and Wade Bowen’s show at House of Blues in Dallas. About ten feet behind…
Queen + Adam Lambert 6 p.m. Thursday, July 10, at the American Airlines Center, 2500 Victory Ave., 214-222-3687 or Americanairlinescenter.com, $35-$125 Let’s be very clear here: The last Queen show was performed 28 years ago at Knebworth House in England. It was the last show because that was the last…
Curren$y With DJ Fat Tony Trees, Dallas Tuesday, July 8, 2014 Last night red and blue lights lit the hazy stage at Trees, and the smell of incense was in the air with the attempt to cover the smell of marijuana. The Dallas crowd was rebellious last night, people of…
For a decade now, Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen, along with their trusty band mates, have become A-Listers in the nebulously defined, increasingly lucrative world of Texas Country Music. The reason for each artist’s ascendency isn’t a secret. Rogers, a native of Cleburne just outside of Fort Worth, and Waco…
Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic Forth Worth Stockyards Friday, July 4, 2014 “Hey man, this is the wrong place to be wearing that,” slurred an older concert attendee, pointing at my black Pantera T-shirt as I made my way through the crowd. “This is a Willie Nelson concert.” It…
Wye Oak With Pattern is Movement Trees, Dallas Saturday, July 5, 2014 About a quarter of the way through Wye Oak’s set at Trees on Saturday night, a mother led her three children through the crowd carrying a pizza. They retreated to the upstairs segment of Trees, sat down and…
Sometimes the only thing that’s worse than a Monday is the Monday after a three-day weekend. Honestly, what does anyone have to look forward to now? Aside from, you know, some real summer heat finally starting to creep in. Fortunately the start of any new week in Dallas also means…
Open Carry Guitar Rally Trinity River Walking Bridge Friday, July 4, 2014 A miraculous “Open Carry” tradition started over the weekend on Fourth of July right here in Dallas. The miraculous part is that it didn’t involve needless public displays of heavy firearms and another reason to wonder if Kevlar…
Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band WinStar Casino, Thackerville, Oklahoma Saturday, July 5, 2014 It could be said that there are two types of Beatles’ fans: those who revere them as enlightened mystical geniuses for their revolutionary experimentation in music, and the other type which prefers the cartoonish, suited-up figurine…
Last night, just before his scheduled performance at the Gas Monkey Bar and Grill in Dallas, so-called “outlaw” David Allan Coe packed his rebel flag-adorned equipment and hit the road, leaving venue staff angry and fans perplexed. According to a message from Gas Monkey’s GM Alex Mendosa posted to the…
