It’s unlikely anyone, least of all the band itself,  would have imagined 15 years ago that the Killers would evolve into what they have become. The Las Vegas-bred rockers’ first studio album, 2004’s Hot Fuss, was full of arch, synth-laden decadence and frontman Brandon Flowers, eyes rimmed with kohl and…

Maren Morris The Bomb Factory, Dallas Friday, April 19, 2019 Before Maren Morris could move forward, she needed to step back. “I’m gonna conduct a straw poll,” the singer-songwriter told the sold-out Bomb Factory crowd Friday night, near the end of her performance, as she lightly strummed the opening chords…

Brandi Carlile The Bomb Factory, Dallas April 12, 2019 The cheers and applause seemed to rise and rise, as if the sheer force of it all would pop the roof right off The Bomb Factory. Brandi Carlile — singer, songwriter, mother, devoted activist and newly minted Grammy winner — stood…

A moment, late Friday night, perfectly crystallized Jenny Lewis’s particular blend of sweet and sour. As she brought “Born Secular,” a track from Rabbit Fur Coat, her 2006 collaboration with The Watson Twins (on hand Friday as a superb opening act, and participants in the encore), to its climax, a…

Take a listen to any track on Charley Crockett’s most recent album, Lil G.L.’s Blues Bonanza, and you can hear it. There’s a weariness in his voice on these last-call covers — it’s there in the obscure Ray Charles single “Here Am I,” seeping into the lyrics “Here am I/All…

What is love if not a mix of the sublime and the silly? Michael Buble acknowledged as much near the top of his two-hour performance Monday night at American Airlines Center. “There are 15,000 people in here,” he said, clad in a dapper black suit and sporting a light scruff…

A cynic might wander into a Pink show, take in all the Broadway-caliber sensory overload on display and assume the mononymous pop star is a one-trick pony. After all, she’s been soaring through the air for 15 years – since her 2004 Try This world tour – and continues to…

Kacey Musgraves stepped onto the Bomb Factory stage Friday night, clad in a dress the color of a freshly uncapped highlighter. A roar ripped through the sold-out room like a tornado. Such a visceral reaction was inevitable, given Musgraves’ standing as a hometown-ish girl (this Dallas gig is as close…

If over the next few days anyone who sat inside the Majestic Theatre on Sunday night comes up to you and starts raving about the Jeff Tweedy concert — well, just bear this in mind. “I’ve been telling everyone at these shows — it might be the greatest show, but…

Bliss is scarce these days. The relentless drumbeat of grim news, wretched behavior and ugly attitudes can make moments of unadulterated pleasure feel even more intense than they might otherwise. How else to explain exiting the Granada Theater into Dallas’ frigid dampness early Sunday morning, yet feeling as if you…

Lately, it seems as if nothing ever really ends in this era of endless pop-culture reboots, reimaginings and reconfigurings. Therefore, the notion of a definitive conclusion carries more weight these days than it might otherwise. That air of finality permeated Elton John’s Friday night performance at American Airlines Center, the…

What is there to say about Taylor Swift that hasn’t been said before? She’s the princess of pop, the queen of open letters to streaming services, the goddess of breakup and beef songs. There’s nothing she can’t or won’t do at this point. But even with all she’s accomplished, it…

In an age of such concentrated, oppressive isolation — faces affixed to screens, individuals locked in cozy, self-selecting bubbles of comforting affirmation — it can be a remarkable, galvanizing thing to be reminded of the humanity of the person standing right next to you. Such weighty realizations might have been…

As can often happen during a Mavericks concert, the tequila shots materialized mid-set. Carried on a tray by a man clad in black, who weaved between the nine musicians onstage inside the Statler Ballroom, each member of the Mavericks picked up a glass, swallowed the clear liquid contained within and…

Luke Dick knows what you’re thinking. That name? In this political climate? The moniker of his band — Republican Hair — might seem like some kind of liberal hippie provocation in this knee-jerk age of snowflake triggering, but the 39-year-old singer-songwriter would like to soothe your potentially aggrieved sensibilities. “[The…

The eternally wry k.d. lang wasted little time dispensing with the allure of nostalgia Sunday night. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are here celebrating the 25th anniversary of Ingenue, which means two things,” the Canadian singer-songwriter informed those gathered inside Southern Methodist University’s McFarlin Auditorium. “First of all, we’re a bunch…

“Rock this bitch!” Those three words, hurtling out of the darkness, momentarily put the bespectacled, bearded Ben Folds back on his heels. The 52-year-old singer-songwriter was standing on stage, inside a sold-out Bass Performance Hall, with the 60-member Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra arrayed behind him. As conductor Edwin Outwater looked…

Not for the first time, Lyle Lovett took a moment to note his gratitude Sunday night. “You’re a wonderful audience … we’re playing six shows in my home state of Texas, and every show feels like a hometown show,” he said from the Winspear Opera House stage, before namechecking dear…

Dallas has seen plenty of good shows this year. Whether it was St. Vincent destroying The Bomb Factory with her guitar and vocals or Tony Bennett showing us age doesn’t matter, we were treated to an array of talent. Here are the 10 best we’ve seen so far in 2018,…

As the sold-out crowd filed into the American Airlines Center on Friday, there were the weighty quotations displayed on screens flanking the angular stage, which stretched out into the middle of the floor. Settling into your seat, you could ponder this, from poet Rupi Kaur: “What is stronger than the…

What does an artist owe an audience? Is it an evening brimming with songs instantly familiar to those gathered before the stage? Or is a night spent chasing a feeling across a deliberately assembled set list more rewarding, a chance to invite those in attendance to share in the mood…