North Texas doesn’t often get credit for its vibrant music scene. DFW offers a wide range of entertainment, from staggeringly large events to small, intimate shows. The modern scene builds on a deeply rooted but often tumultuous history, with nightlife districts buffeted by boom and bust cycles. These days, the…
AC/DC With Tyler American Airlines Center, Dallas Tuesday, February 23, 2016 Angus Young is going to die with his boots on. After seeing the 60-year-old AC/DC guitarist in action at American Airlines Center on Tuesday night, it’s hard to imagine it happening any other way. The man lives to play,…
Leave it to a Dallas celebrity to start some bad blood over a good deed. Over the weekend, Dallas native, former Disney Channel actor and rising pop star Demi Lovato took a stand against fellow singer and recent Grammy winner Taylor Swift — for the fact that Swift had donated…
You may have never heard of Nevada Hill, but his fingerprints — quite literally — were all over the the North Texas music scene. He was never the sort of guy to be headlining a big venue like Trees or to get his songs played on the radio. Sadly, Hill…
Busking is about as basic as it gets when it comes to performing live music. Not exactly pure, mind you; the idea is still to make some money. All you need is an instrument, a place to stand and the ability to attract a crowd. Just ask Leon Bridges. But…
We’re a month and a half into the new year, and what you have done with yourself? If your first answer is, “Not much,” then don’t fret; you only have a little over 10 months left to not follow through on your New Year’s resolution. If your second answer is,…
Don’t get us wrong: We’re never going to be disappointed about the opportunity to see a Ludacris show. Hell, the guy even played the Dallas Observer’s St. Patrick’s Day concert a couple years ago. But when news broke yesterday afternoon that the Dallas Mavericks will be hosting a Luda concert…
It’s taken seven years, but Homegrown Festival has finally expanded to two days. Well, sort of. The organizers of the Texas-only festival in downtown Dallas have actually branched out into hosting a whole second music festival, and they’ve done so in a way that could easily seem risky: the new…
Hope you took a late lunch, folks, because perusing this list is going to take a while. As is tradition with 35 Denton, the festival’s organizers have rolled out the announcements for this year’s event — set to take place in less than a month from March 11 to 13…
Leon Bridges’ fairytale year didn’t quite get the perfect ending that his fans would’ve hoped for on Monday night. After skyrocketing from life as a dishwasher to being an international phenomenon over the course of 2015, the Fort Worth native made the trek out to Los Angeles for the 58th…
As though we needed any more reasons to proud of St. Vincent, she threw us another one over the weekend. The Grammy winner and part-time taco slinger happens to be one of the best guitarists on the planet — for our money, probably the best (not that we have any…
It’s February, which in Texas means it’s just about festival season. Really. South By Southwest is only a month away, meaning so too are 35 Denton and Spillover. Hell, music and film fest Thin Line is next weekend. So it’s about time for some of Dallas’ bigger late spring and…
The location of the party is top secret. There are no fliers, no public advertisements, not even an address for those who have been invited. There is only a private group on Facebook, and a message: “WE ARE THE UNDERGROUND. WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER. IN THE SHADOWS WE ARE FREE.”…
From the moment Johnette Napolitano walked onstage at The Live Oak in Fort Worth on Friday night, it was clear there was a problem. The Concrete Blonde singer was in town for a solo acoustic performance, but from the very beginning she was visibly intoxicated. After fumbling through a handful…
“River,” one of the standout tracks from Leon Bridges’ 2015 debut Coming Home, thrives on its understatement. A contrast to the R&B bounce of singles like the title track or “Better Man,” “River” is stripped down and bare, mostly Bridges with his guitar, his voice and his demons. In many…
Quick, name the last Coldplay song you listened to. Well okay, it’s been a little while, hasn’t it? It’s been a quiet stretch the past couple years for (one of the many) band(s) formerly known as “The Next Radiohead,” what with the conscious uncoupling and all. Chris Martin and co…
The last time Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were in Dallas, it was for a one-off performance at Reunion Tower during the NCAA March Madness festivities back in 2014. As usual, The Boss put on a killer show, although the novelty of having it at Reunion was dampened…
We’ve gotten pretty spoiled of late here in Dallas. Three times in the past four months, one of our homegrown musicians has made it onto the biggest late-night TV stage in North America (and, arguably, the world): Saturday Night Live. First it was Demi Lovato, then Leon Bridges and finally,…
Looking for a music festival with plenty of hip hop? Apparently Denton is the place to be. While most Dallas fests, save for JMBLYA and Rageville, only intermittently tap into rappers for their lineups (if at all, in some cases), Denton has been doing it more and more. Oaktopia built…
Remember a few weeks back when there were nonstop parties to go to, and work holidays to help recover from them? Those were the days. Now, however, it’s not only cold outside but there are no holidays and no reasons to party (besides, you know, your usual alcoholic tendencies). But…
It’s official now: 2016 is off to one hell of a rough start for music fans. Losing David Bowie last week was harder than most for a lot of music fans, and tributes have been rolling in for more than a week now to the great British singer. But now…
Normally the prospect of sitting out at a show at Gexa Energy Pavilion in the middle of August is the stuff of night terrors — something akin to frying an egg on the sidewalk. But every so often there’s a show that makes it worthwhile, and one of them just…
