Ask anyone who’s ever attended an Erykah Badu concert and, inevitably, the same topic comes up: “Why does she have to start so late?” It’s a fair question: In the handful of times I’ve seen the Dallas native perform, exactly one concert has begun even remotely close to its scheduled…

Suddenly, it was silent. The thrumming bass, swirling synths, ticking drums and Robyn’s muscular soprano were stilled. In the harsh half-light of Irving’s Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, its cavernous interior reconfigured into an intimate theater, a couple thousand voices rose up as one: “I’m in the corner/Watching you kiss…

If anyone filed into Globe Life Park Saturday night expecting a sentimental farewell, Billy Joel was prepared to deliver — to a point. “I just wanted to let you know I don’t have anything new for you — it’s the same old shit,” the 70-year-old singer-songwriter informed us all up…

As far as rock star entrances go, it was unorthodox. On Monday night at the American Airlines Center, Phil Collins entered leaning heavily on a cane. His feet shuffling steadily forward, the 68-year-old Collins made a beeline for a swivel chair. The affectionate roars from the sold-out room greeting the…

Saturday night at the Statler Ballroom, as The Mavericks launched into “Summertime (When I’m With You),” the floor began to move beneath the crowd’s feet. That it felt as though the entire room was dancing — a couple of thousand fans pressed together in a room often on the verge…

Late in the evening, John Mayer leveled with us. He described to the comfortably full American Airlines Center an unhurried dinner with a companion whose presence soothes and everything feels so relaxed and easy that, before you know it, dessert has arrived: “That’s what this feels like,” the 41-year-old singer-songwriter…

There was no finer example of Vampire Weekend’s ability to walk a tightrope mood between pensive and propulsive than during its performance of hit single “This Life” on Sunday night. Before a near-capacity Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, stricken with soporific summer heat, frontman Ezra Koenig and his bandmates sang…

Pop music has long made heartbreak hummable, but making it a feeling worth savoring? That’s a bit tougher to pull off. Yet Carly Rae Jepsen did just that Thursday night throughout her 90-minute headlining set at the House of Blues. In her first Dallas-area appearance in three years, the 33-year-old…

There is a song named “River” on Patty Griffin’s latest, self-titled album, which I’d played countless times since its March release. But it wasn’t until Saturday night, when the 55-year-old singer-songwriter, making her first Dallas appearance in a little over a year, stood before a sold-out Granada Theater, that I…

Pluck any line at random from a Jason Isbell song, and more likely than not, you’ve got yourself a bit of poetry. Same goes for the singer-songwriter Josh Tillman, who performs under the moniker Father John Misty — his lyrics tend to linger, suffusing the body with a slow burn…

The word “therapy” is defined as the “medical treatment of impairment, injury, disease, or disorder.” Of those four, it would seem injury — primarily of a reputational sort — was being most thoroughly addressed Saturday night at Dos Equis Pavilion, as Hootie and the Blowfish brought its Group Therapy tour…

To step inside the American Airlines Center Tuesday night was to enter a hall of mirrors. On stage, white-hot pop superstar Ariana Grande cooed, belted, sashayed, dipped, twirled and reclined her way through a briskly paced 90-minute set. Off stage, from the arena floor to the rafters, a sold-out room…

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…