Best Things To Do in Dallas This Weekend

Friday

Giacomo Puccini’s opera Manon Lescaut contains one of the most spirited, individualistic, timeless and tragic female protagonists in the repertory. The young Manon ultimately finds herself pulled between two mutually exclusive paths: a glitzy life of luxury or true love. The result is intensely discouraging, and at once both obvious and startling. Manon Lescaut is sung in Italian, accompanied by English supertitles. There are four performances: at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Wednesday and Saturday, March 1, 6 and 9, and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 3. All take place at the Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora St. Tickets start at $19. Find more info at dallasopera.org. Jonathan Patrick

Patio furniture, flooring, garden supplies, remodeling plans: Spring’s coming, so it’s time for homeowners to start getting prepped for the season of yard work and home upgrades. A home you own isn’t just a place to live. It’s an endless time sink and wallet suck that consume you. OK, so we rent and feel pretty smug about it sometimes — particularly spring weekends, when we’re out drinking while the rest of the city does lawn maintenance. Homeowners can also do things like check out the Dallas Home and Garden Show, a three-day convention of vendors, advice and tips for prettying up the old homestead. Fun! The show runs March 1-3 at Dallas Market Hall, 2200 Stemmons Freeway. Hours are 2-6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $10, with discounts for kids, old people and members of the military. Find tickets and more information at texashomeandgarden.com/dallas-spring-2019/. Patrick Williams

The House on Haunted Hill exists in that place where so many old horror movies are allowed to rest: critically acclaimed for a mix between camp and creepiness and given a certain amount of respect because it was novel at the time, not necessarily because it was good. It’s certainly not bad. The appearance of Vincent Price ensures that. But it’s probably best viewed with your tongue planted in your cheek, which is exactly the dress code for The House on Haunted Hill: A Mocky Horror Show at 11:15 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Pocket Sandwich Theater, 5400 E. Mockingbird Lane. Comedians Liz Barksdale, Danny Gallagher and Bryan Hickey pepper the cult classic with cutting takes, snide asides and opportunities for audience participation. Tickets are $15 at pocketsandwich.com. Jennifer Davis-Lamm

Lionel Richie is easy like Sunday morning but will make his next local appearance on a Friday. That evening he will play a show at the Global Event Center at WinStar World Resort and Casino. Despite launching a new home decor collection sold exclusively at JC Penney, the longtime crooner isn't giving up his day job. 9 p.m. Friday at WinStar Casino, 777 Casino Ave., Thackerville, Oklahoma, $95 and up. Jeff Strowe

Metric kicked off a huge co-headlining tour through the U.S. earlier this month with Zoé. The Canadian indie-rockers just released a seventh studio album, Art of Doubt. Zoé recently won a Grammy for Best Latin Rock, Urban Or Alternative Album for Aztlán. Last year they were nominated for three Latin Grammy awards. With July Talk, 7 p.m. Friday at South Side Ballroom, 1135 S. Lamar St., $41. Diamond Rodrigue

What's left of the Zombies is still worth seeing in 2019. The key duo of Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone are joined by three apt players to perform the joyous psychedelic pop of yesteryear. Normally the band plays bigger venues, but for this sold-out show, it's at the wonderfully intimate Kessler. The band is not some oldies hits revue. Expect to hear the radio hits, but plenty of album cuts people have loved, like "Care of Cell 44" and "I Want Her She Wants Me," as well as Argent songs. This is definitely a great opportunity to see music from the 1960s that still resonates. With Liz Brasher, 8 p.m. Friday at The Kessler. 1230 W. Davis St., sold out. Eric Grubbs

In the early days of his band, Car Seat Headrest, Will Toledo would often find himself screaming vocals into a microphone from the safety of a church parking lot, so as not to wake his parents, whom he lived with at the time. The band’s come a long way since then, and their latest project seeks to rectify some of the once necessary haphazardness of one of their first outings. Released last February, Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) is a rerecording of an album Toledo originally released on Bandcamp in 2011. Featuring reworked lyrics and much improved production quality, the update does justice to the original’s hybrid of existentially harrowing self-reflection and hyper-literate indie pop. Showcasing a more confident Toledo, Car Seat Headrest added 19 more cities to their tour last October, with Dallas being the second-to-last stop. They’ll be playing onstage as a seven-piece band, bringing opening act Naked Giants on to man additional instruments as well. Assuming Toledo has paced himself over the course of his last 63 tour dates, this show’s more than worth the price of admission. With Naked Giants, 7 p.m. Friday at Canton Hall, 2727 Canton St., $20 and up at ticketfly.com. Nicholas Bostick

Saturday

For fans of the local MLS team, you finally have your first regular-season opportunity to check out the club’s newest star, the 21-year-old, 6-foot, 3-inch defender Callum Montgomery, picked fourth overall Feb. 21 in the 2019 MLS SuperDraft, and see if the team can do better this year than last year’s Knockout Round elimination. For everyone else, it’s a chance to try more than a dozen new food and drink options, including the 3 More Points stands in sections 112 and 120 with a menu of nachos, margaritas, sandwiches, the cheddar-and-jalapeño-stuffed PK Dog and beers and margaritas all priced at $3 when FC Dallas’ home opener against the New England Revolution kicks off at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Toyota Stadium, 9200 World Cup Way, Frisco. Tickets start at $23 and are available at fcdallas.com. Jesse Hughey

Pup people can trade floats for fur as Cane Rosso Rescue, Beard Papa’s and Texas Ale Project, 1001 N. Riverfront Blvd., host a PawdiGras Party. Canine costuming and general Crescent City-style fabulousness are encouraged from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. Participate in costume contests, raffles, live music from Alex and Sarah and noshing on treats, including Munchie Street’s Asian fusion, Beard Papa’s cream puffs and, of course, TAP’s craft brews. No dog? No problem. Cane Rosso Rescue will be on-site with adoptable dogs looking for their forever homes. For more information on Cane Rosso Rescue — including dogs up for adoption or foster care — visit canerossorescue.org. For more information on the PawdiGras Party, search for it on Facebook.com. Merritt Martin

If you've ever wanted to see the Texas Rangers' Globe Life Park from the players' perspectives on the field, now's your chance, and all it will cost you is $35 and some sweat. Fitness group Camp Gladiator and the Rangers are holding a 5K workout at the team's soon-to-be former home. The course, open to everyone regardless of how fit they are, will take runners through the stands and onto the field, throwing some exercises in along the way. It's followed by a party with live music, food and vendors offering workout gear. The event is 7-11 a.m. at 1000 Ballpark Way in Arlington. Tickets are $35 for adults and $15 for kids ages 10-16 for advance registration; ticket prices go up $10 if purchased at the event. Spectators and kids under 10 can get in for free. Register and find more information at cgstadiumtakeover.campgladiator.com. Patrick Williams

Adia Victoria makes funereal blues steeped in the cultural and social weight of Southern politics and the anxiety that engenders in people of color. Her creaking, haunted ballads are slow to unravel but quick to get under your skin, animated as much by emotional scar tissue as heady cynicism. Inside her dusty, shadowy narratives, religion, alcohol, mourning and emotional intelligence mix, producing something akin to old-world storytelling with a distinctly millennial bent. There’s no sulking in Victoria’s music; instead there’s a celebratory, if fatalistic, spirit that drives her songwriting, an optimism made explicit in her flinty voice and bouncy rhythm sections. Music like this has a way of bridging generations — wrestling with fundamental human suffering never goes out of style. 9 p.m. Saturday at Three Links, 2704 Elm St., $12-$15. Jonathan Patrick

The six-piece brass band Big Ass Brass Band isn't like your typical horn section. They make every concert feel like a party with a unique fusion of funk and jazz. The band also received a nod for best jazz act at the Dallas Observer music awards. 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Box Garden at Legacy Hall, 7800 Windrose Ave., free. Diamond Rodrigue

Sunday

Really, if you throw bead necklaces out of your car to flashing pedestrians, you could make any boring commute a parade. But cops would probably pull you over and get all mad, so perhaps it's best to wait for a holiday. Luckily, Mardi Gras is here, and Go Oak Cliff will host its Mardi Gras Oak Cliff parade starting at 4 p.m. Sunday. The parade begins at West Davis Street near Windomere Avenue in Oak Cliff. The parade is free and the beads only cost a handful. A crawfish boil and block party in the Bishop Arts Districts begin at 2 p.m. Visit gooakcliff.org/mardi-gras-oak-cliff for details. Paige Skinner

As a Grammy-winning indie songsmith, Jeff Tweedy is about as endearing and emotionally powerful as they come. With his band Wilco, Tweedy has consistently imbued the familiar textures of Middle American indie rock with a depth of genuineness so often lacking in the genre. If there’s one consistent thread in the artist’s subject matter, it has something to do with the struggles of being a human seeking connection amidst the mundanity of everyday life, and how intensely essential empathy is to that humanity. Last year saw Tweedy’s first collection of entirely original solo material, Warm, and the results felt wholly fresh and surprisingly poignant for an artist so far along in a successful career. The songs are sparse, brittle, at once melancholic and triumphant. The distance between the heart of Tweedy’s art and listeners has never felt so intimate. His music is now more skeletal and less adventurous than previous work, sure, but that’s exactly the point. Mortality, addiction and familial love don’t require fancy vehicles to click into place. If anything, such adornments only serve to muddy the signal. Over 30 years into this music thing, Tweedy is still finding new, soul-stirring ways to make human connections. With Buck Meek, 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Majestic Theatre, 1925 Elm St., $39.50 and up at songkick.com. Jonathan Patrick