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…
We asked three of our regular contributors, Taylor Frantum, Preston Jones and Jacob Vaughn, to tackle a tough question: Should we still listen to the music of the late Michael Jackson, R. Kelly or Ryan Adams, three hugely popular artists in the news over allegations they were sexual predators who…
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…
The lights were strung from the stage with care, and the sold-out crowd buzzed with bonhomie as singer-songwriter Jack Johnson said something perhaps never said before from the stage of a rock concert. “I wanna play this one for any kids out there before it gets too late tonight,” he…
Jacksonville, Texas, native Lee Ann Womack told a jam-packed Kessler Theater on Sunday night that when it came to making her most recent album, she had to go back before she could move forward. “When I was growing up in East Texas, I had everything ahead of me, and I…
To stand inside a Foo Fighters show — amid the lights and lasers, smoke machines and drummers rising nearly to the rafters — is to understand how the band has endured, however improbably, for nearly 25 years. The reason is simple: Frontman Dave Grohl and his bandmates show up and…
Time preoccupied Beck at every turn Friday night. Whether it was the eclectic setlist slipping easily between moods, albums and moments in his career, or the singer-songwriter’s repeated remembrances of past North Texas appearances, the weight of years seemed omnipresent. Perhaps that’s merely a strong inference from someone who has…
It’s human nature to take moments for granted as they happen. A sunrise, a first kiss, a walk in the rain — these things come and fade away, shifting from lived to remembered with astonishing quickness. What separates Lorde’s brand of sinuous, stormy and sophisticated pop music from her peers’…
