“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’…
You could sense the anticipation before setting foot in the venue. The closed lots were packed full of cars as fans anxiously scanned side streets for any available spaces. The frantic young people clutched phones and portable chargers. Niall Horan’s sold-out Flicker Sessions tour stop Friday night at the South Side Ballroom…
