10 Best Concerts of the Week: Dead Boys, Janelle Monáe, The All-American Rejects and More

The weather may be looking mild for this next week, but these concerts are getting hotter. The week starts with a bit of experimentation as Death Grips comes to The Cedars for a full night of doomsayer hip-hop. That same night Italian band Måneskin returns to North Texas bigger and better. There is a lot to choose from Saturday night when Static-X comes to The Factory in Deep Ellum, Snarky Puppy plays the Longhorn, Dead Boys play Lower Greenville and The Breeders play an off-night in Fort Worth. Sunday brings an opportunity to funk up your life with Chromeo in the Design District, and on Monday, The 1975 bring the second leg of its "Very Best" tour to Fort Worth, and Janelle Monáe makes her long-awaited return to North Texas. Finally, on Wednesday, The All-American Rejects invite you to a night-long lesson in the history of second-wave emo. Now, if that's not hot enough for you, just wait until you see what's coming to town the following week.
Death Grips
8:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 6, South Side Ballroom, 1135 Botham Jean Blvd. $45.50+ at ticketmaster.com

It's hard to imagine that a group that infamously presented shows through a television set — yep, fans would show up only to find a pre-recorded video of the band playing on TV — would be inviting audiences to spend an evening watching them live, but that is exactly what's happening Friday night in The Cedars as the South Side Ballroom hosts An Evening with Death Grips. In those early days, Death Grips was more of a conceptual art piece — driven by the paranoid and confessional rhymes of MC Ride and the production of Zach Hill – than it was a traditional band. In the 2010s, the group released six albums, five EPs, three non-album singles, an instrumental album and a mixtape, but since 2019, the band has spent more time focusing on its live show at festivals and on its current tour. There will be no opening act for Death Grips on this tour. Instead, the band will be playing roughly 30 tracks from across its massive catalog and possibly even something new.
Måneskin
8:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 6, The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, 300 W. Las Colinas Blvd., Irving. $35+ at ticketmaster.com

Italian glam rock band Måneskin was introduced to a larger audience in the Italian version of the talent competition The X Factor in 2017. The band finished second to singer Lorenzo Licitra in the show's 11th season but has gone on to become an international success. It made its American television debut last year, performing "Beggin'" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in October 2021. The band released its third studio album, Rush!, in January 2023 after wrapping up its first North American tour. That tour saw the band give a Tuesday night show at South Side Ballroom. The band has only gotten bigger since then, collecting a Grammy nomination for "Best New Artist" and seeing album Rush! break the top 20 on the Billboard 200. While the band is still not selling out shows like it does in Europe, the venues and the crowds are definitely getting bigger.
Static-X
6:15 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 7, The Factory in Deep Ellum, 2713 Canton St. $34+ at axs.com

For a while, it seemed like every time Static-X came through town, the focus wasn't really on the band. In 2019, the band toured in honor of the 20th anniversary of its breakthrough album, Wisconsin Death Trip. The band had lost its original singer, Wayne Static, a few years prior and had replaced him with an enigmatic, robotic figure known only as Xer0. The next time the band came to town was in support of Rob Zombie and Mudvayne's Freaks on Parade Tour. Earlier this year, however, Static-X came to town as headliners on the Rise of the Machine Tour ahead of the release of Project: Regeneration, Vol. 2, which has now been pushed back to January. Not to be deterred by a delayed album release, Static-X plays in Deep Ellum Saturday night with co-headliner Sevendust, Lines of Loyalty and Dope. Dope singer Edsel Dope will have a double shift that night as he has been revealed to be the voice behind Xer0.
Snarky Puppy
6:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 7, Longhorn Ballroom, 216 Corinth St. $40+ at prekindle.com

The Denton-born, four-time Grammy-winning, jazz-fusion juggernaut Snarky Puppy will play a show at the renovated Longhorn Ballroom Saturday night. The jazz experiment with bandleader Michael League started in 2004 after he failed to place in any ensemble at the University of North Texas. The group has only grown louder and prouder with each passing year. Over 40 musicians have performed with the band through its 17-year, 14-album history; the same musicians have played with Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake, David Crosby and a list that stretches on and on. The band's album Live at the Royal Albert Hall took home the Grammy Award for the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in 2020. Earlier this year, Snarky Puppy won the same award for its Empire Central album, recorded at Deep Ellum Art Company in the spring of 2022.
The Breeders
8 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 7, Tannahill's Tavern and Music Hall, 122 E. Exchange Ave., Ste. 200, Fort Worth. $45 at ticketmaster.com

Even if you don't know that The Breeders is the longtime side project of now-ex-Pixies member Kim Deal, even if you don't know that Kim Deal's twin sister Kelley is also in the band, even if you don't know the band's iconic album Last Splash is celebrating its 30-year anniversary, you know the opening bass line to the band's best-known song "Cannonball." The Breeders have been touring the anniversary of the album for the past two months with opening acts such as Horsegirl and Screaming Females. But as the band's Dallas show happens in the middle of The Breeders opening for Foo Fighters for a couple of Southwest shows (and before the band does the Austin City Limits Music Festival), The Breeders have no scheduled opening act for its Fort Worth show this weekend. This kind of break in a band's normal tour schedule often makes for a really fun show and possibly a surprise or two.
Dead Boys
9 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 7, Sundown at Granada, 3520 Greenville Ave. $22.50 at prekindle.com

CBGB was the birthing ground of New York punk. It's in that famous club that bands such as Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television and Patti Smith all got their start. Clearly, that was back when punk was more of an umbrella term, encompassing the kinds of music we refer to today as "indie." There was one CBGB band that would set the tone for what we know today as hardcore or street punk, and that band was the Dead Boys. One of two bands ever managed by CBGB club owner Hilly Kristal, Dead Boys burned loud and bright from 1975 until 1979, when the band dissolved into side projects. Today the band consists of original bassist Cheetah Chrome, former Dead Boys tribute band singer Jake Hout and some touring musicians, but for those who have seen this iteration of the band, it is clear that the intensity that always defined the group has remained. Glam band The Midnight Devils from Omaha, Nebraska, opens the show.
Chromeo
7 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 8, The Echo Lounge & Music Hall, 1323 N. Stemmons Freeway. $36+ at livenation.com

An electro-funk duo from Montreal, Chromeo makes the kind of music that people just love to dance to. Fronted by Dave 1 (aka David Macklovitch), a doctoral candidate in French literature at Columbia University and lecturer at Barnard College, Chromeo brings humor and fun with every performance. The duo has released six albums over the course of their two-decade-long career, receiving their first Grammy nomination in 2018 for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, for their dance chart-topping album Head Over Heels. In 2020, the duo released the five-song EP Quarantine Casanova, each song dealing with some element of our shared quarantine experience (e.g., "Clorox Wipe," "6 Feet Away," "Stay in Bed (And Do Nothing)" and so on). This year, Chromeo got back to its old tricks with its spring release, Clusterfunk, and its summer single "Words With You."
The 1975
7:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 9, Dickies Arena, 1911 Montgomery St., Fort Worth. $27.50+ at ticketmaster.com

English rock outfit The 1975 comes to Fort Worth next Monday, still "At Their Very Best," as the tour is called. The last time The 1975 was in town, the group played the Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie and gave a thrillingly versatile performance. It was the last show in support of the band’s 2018 album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships. Though they may be classified as a pop rock band, The 1975 goes beyond mere genre labels to incorporate a lot of elements from electronic and dance music. Unable to tour North America for the 2020 release Notes on a Conditional Form, The 1975 come now in support of last year's release Being Funny in a Foreign Language. With two albums to support, not to mention a 20-year back catalog, The 1975 is sure to live up to the tour's title. Opening will be Northern California bedroom pop musician Dora Jar.
Janelle Monáe
8 p.m., Monday, Oct. 9, The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, 300 W. Las Colinas Blvd., Irving. $61.50+ at livenation.com

In these past five years, Janelle Monáe has made a bigger name for herself as an actor playing lead roles in films such as The Glorias, Antebellum and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — all roles she played with great power and command. But just when you thought Monáe was going to completely leave her singing career in the past, she went and released a new album centered on Afrobeat music. There wasn't a whole lot of lead-up to Monáe's new album, The Age of Pleasure, but days before the album dropped on June 9, the singer announced a U.S. tour, which will be kicking off its final week here in Dallas. The tour will also include opening acts from the world of Afrobeat music, including Monáe's collaborator on The Age of Pleasure, Nana Kwabena, who played percussion on most of the album's tracks. TikTok star Dreamer Isioma will also be there.
The All-American Rejects
8 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 11, South Side Ballroom, 1135 Botham Jean Blvd. $45+ at ticketmaster.com

This is the kind of concert people in high school, circa 2005, hoped for, wearing all their Hot Topic gear and hoping they looked as cool and as edgy as they felt. The All-American Rejects will be making those teenage dreams come true when the band's Wet Hot All-American Summer Tour comes rolling into town with New Found Glory, Motion City Soundtrack and The Get Up Kids. Sure, one way to look at that lineup is that it is backwards, but the way that the bands are ordered actually makes the concert a kind of history lesson in which the most influential bands lead into the most influenced. The Get Up Kids were a major player in the formation of Midwest Emo — a sound that bands New Found Glory in Florida and Motion City Soundtrack in Minnesota would attempt to capture in their work. A few years later, The All-American Rejects used the sound as a foundation for its anthemic, power pop hits. It should be a fun history lesson.