10 Best Concerts of the Week: Cat Power, Garth Brooks, The Shins and More

This week, North Texas music fans can look forward to a broad range of big- and small-name acts from an array of genres making their way through Dallas, Arlington, Denton and Irving. Cat Power kicks the week off with indie rock and electric blues on Lower Greenville. On Friday, Three Links hosts a night of post-punk, while Saturday is split between a giant Garth Brooks show in Arlington and a small Flametrick Subs show in Denton. The Factory in Deep Ellum brought its A-game in booking, presenting three of this week's best 10 concerts: Bowling For Soup, Rise Against and The Shins, playing Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Sunday will also see performances by Third Eye Blind and STRFKR in Irving and Dallas. There is plenty to see if you want to rock out.
Cat Power
7 p.m. Thursday, July 28, Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Ave. $35 at prekindle.com

Singer-songwriter and producer Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) was scheduled to play Dallas' Granada Theater this past January but had to postpone the show due to COVID-19. The singer finally makes her return to North Texas Thursday night, touring in support of her latest album, Covers. Marshall’s work as Cat Power has defied genre and convention with a mix of indie rock and electric blues. Songwriters like Lana Del Rey, Angel Olsen and Phoebe Bridgers are direct musical descendants of Marshall's work. This year's Covers album is the third that Cat Power has released in nearly three decades of recording. The latest, produced in its entirety by Marshall, features the singer's signature reimaginings of songs by Frank Ocean, Nick Cave, Iggy Pop, The Replacements, Lana Del Rey and a cover of her own song “Hate” from 2006's The Greatest, retitled “Unhate” for the album.
TRAITRS
7 p.m. Friday, July 29, Three Links, 2704 Elm St. $15+ at seetickets.us

Toronto post-punk duo TRAITRS formed during the summer of 2015, and within a year, released a debut cassette, Rites And Ritual. For two years, the band earned the respect of dark music scenes across Europe and North America, touring 12 countries after releasing their first full-length album, Butcher’s Coin. TRAITRS performs in Dallas on the anniversary of the band's The Sick, Tired and Ill EP release, which preceded the release of their next full-length LP, Horses In The Abattoir, last November. Lauded for their manic creative energy and introspective grandiosity, TRAITRS come to Dallas as the penultimate show on the first leg of its very first full North American tour. Friday night's show at Three Links in Deep Ellum will also see performances from twin-brother darkwave duo NITE and Dallas post-punk band Telemetry. DJ Cinis of Obscura Undead will spin guitar- and synth-based tunes to get the crowd going.
Garth Brooks
7 p.m. Saturday, July 30, AT&T Stadium, 1 AT&T Way, Arlington. $20+ at stubhub.com

Garth Brooks is bigger than The Beatles. With nine diamond-selling albums (albums that have sold over 10 million copies), he officially surpassed The Beatles' record in 1997 when his seventh album, Sevens, became his seventh album to reach those kinds of sales. You really can go on and on with the numbers and accolades the country singer has accrued over the past 30-something years, but as anyone who has seen the Netflix docuseries The Road I'm On knows, the most remarkable thing about Brooks is how humble the guy is about it all. Brooks released his 11th studio album in late 2020, which did well on the country charts but failed to generate the same noise that his first seven albums did. Still, Brooks sold out AT&T Stadium, and the cheap tickets you might be able to find on StubHub are for the Fan Zone. Country's biggest act is still as big as it gets.
Flametrick Subs
8 p.m. Saturday, July 30, Rubber Gloves, 411 E. Sycamore Dr., Denton. $15 at prekindle.com

The Flametrick Subs are theatrical, high-energy and self-described as a "rockabilly trainwreck." Getting their start in Waco in 1989 before quickly finding a better home for their style in Austin, The Flametrick Subs have spent over three decades serving up booze-fueled sets that promise to make audiences feel good today and bad tomorrow. Adding even more chaos to their show Friday night at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, The Flametrick Subs will receive support from local acts, the symphonic brass punk collective The Wee-Beasties, who are inching ever closer to releasing Party With Us!, the full-length follow-up to last year's The Whole 7 Inches EP. Metal band Midnight Murder Show opens the show ahead of their upcoming release, Holy War. Each one of these bands brings a lot of theatricality to its performance, so it should be quite an entertaining night.
Bowling for Soup
7 p.m. Sunday, July 31, The Factory in Deep Ellum, 2713 Canton St. $35+ at axs.com

Bowling for Soup will co-headline a Deep Ellum show with ska punk band Less Than Jake, but since Bowling for Soup will always call North Texas home, we're going to put them on the heading. Formed in Wichita Falls, Bowling for Soup made it big playing around Denton and Dallas in the late '90s before Jive Records scooped them up and sent them into the new millennium with a couple of pop punk classics that can still get the crowds singing along. The band released their 11th album, Pop Drunk Snot Bread, this past April — their first without longtime bassist Erik Chandler, who left the band in 2019 to pursue other interests. Despite waning interest in the American music market, the band's new album did quite well overseas on the U.K. music charts. The one thing that keeps the band and the fans coming back together all these years is that all are assured a good time.
STRFKR
7 p.m. Sunday, July 31, Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Ave. $27 at prekindle.com

Portland indie-rock band STRFKR began as a solo project for Sexton Blake singer Joshua Hodges, who built upon his former band's indie rock sound by adding in some pop, synth and psychedelia. In 2009, STRFKR gained national exposure when "Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second" from the band's 2008 debut was used in Target's "Pink Pepto" commercial. In those 30 seconds, listeners heard all the things that make the band so praiseworthy: catchy hooks, entrancing arrangements and immaculate production quality. In 2020, the band released two albums, the first of which, Future Past Life, was a magical and nuanced album that was released as the world entered the pandemic lockdowns. STRFKR also released Ambient 1, an ambient album intended to be a playful and calming soundscape in response to the pandemic's chaos. STRFKR will have opening support from L.A. indie band The Undercover Dream Lovers and DIY psych artist Das Kope.
Third Eye Blind
7 p.m. Sunday, July 31, The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, 300 W. Las Colinas Blvd., Irving. $29.95+ at livenation.com

Let's face it. Third Eye Blind is pretty much known only for its Earth-shattering, self-titled 1997 debut album that spawned five tracks from which anyone alive and conscious at the time could at least sing the chorus of if not the full song. That's pretty much when the world at large lost interest, but there is so much that we've missed. First of all, there have been six albums since you last checked in on them, and over the course of the last couple of decades the band's sound has naturally developed. On their seventh album, Our Band Apart, released in September 2021, Third Eye Blind surprised critics by embracing a more surf-rock sound on the track "Again," which features indie-surf icon Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast. Perhaps just as curious are Third Eye Blind's opening bands, the emo Taking Back Sunday and indie-surf Hockey Dad, signaling the depth and breadth of Third Eye Blind's influence and influences.
Dance Gavin Dance
6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 1, House of Blues, 2200 N. Lamar St. $35+ at livenation.com

Sacramento post-hardcore icons Dance Gavin Dance returns to North Texas, playing House of Blues Monday night. Promoting their latest album Jackpot Juicer, Dance Gavin Dance comes to town with fewer opening acts than the small-festival's-worth of acts with which they normally tour. This time around, Sacramento-based prog-rock band Royal Coda and D.C. post-hardcore band Body Thief take on the opening duties. Released July 29, Dance Gavin Dance's new album features five previously released tracks filled with interesting melodies and electronic sounds. Aside from always being a band that pushes beyond the boundaries of whatever genre you might pin on it, Dance Gavin Dance has always been known for putting on intense live shows that keep fans coming back for more, and Monday night's show is sure to be no different.
Rise Against
6:30 p.m., Monday, Aug. 1, The Factory in Deep Ellum, 2713 Canton St. $42+ at axs.com

Chicago hardcore-turned-punk-turned-alternative rock band Rise Against returns to town Monday night in support of their latest album, Nowhere Generation, and, as in past tours, they're bringing along a stellar lineup of opening acts: The Used and Senses Fail. Why Rise Against decided to go full screamo with its opening acts is somewhat of a puzzler, but appealing to fans outside the genre seems to be one of the band's ongoing missions. While much debate exists around Rise Against's status as a "real" punk band, everyone agrees that this is a band with real passion and revolutionary energy that hasn't diminished much over the course of 20 years. Rise Against are always on point and play to reach the folks in the back of the audience.
The Shins
7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2, The Factory in Deep Ellum, 2713 Canton St. $49+ at axs.com

New Mexico indie-rock band The Shins had been around for almost a decade before the song "New Slang" was featured prominently in the Garden State soundtrack in 2004. For the next few years, The Shins became the undisputed king of indie-rock as previous releases, Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow, grew in popularity. The band has never quite been able to recapture the magic it stumbled upon in its earlier releases, and perhaps that explains the current tour in celebration of the 21st birthday of Oh, Inverted World — the album that gave us "New Slang" as well as "Caring Is Creepy." Over the years, the band has divided and come back together as singer James Mercer has pursued other projects with Sparklehorse, Danger Mouse and Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock. The Shins will have opening support from Portland-based folk band Joseph.