Frisco’s best-kept secret plays every song you know

Somewhere between the freeways and the freight trains, tucked along Main Street in Frisco, a pair of towering silos stands guard over a patch of turf where the music you grew up with refuses to die. This is Rollertown Beerworks, a 1,300-capacity outdoor venue where the beer is fresh, the sky is enormous and the songs are all ones you know by heart.

Here’s the beautiful little secret the suburbs have been keeping: your favorite band’s best performance may not be from your favorite band at all. Tribute acts are booming, and it’s easy to see why. The originals tour less, cost more or have long since packed up their amps for good. Tribute bands keep their anthems alive, note for glorious note, at a price that won’t require a second mortgage. Nostalgia, affordability and a room full of strangers screaming the same chorus? That’s a perfect formula older than rock itself.

Rollertown has leaned all the way in. Scroll their summer calendar, and you’ll find a jukebox come to life. Monthly, there’s a Led Zeppelin tribute act rattling the silos, Back In Black lights up the backyard with AC/DC’s greatest hits, Fleetwood X spins gold dust, and a piano man tickles the ivories with the piano man Billy Joel’s tunes. Add a Jimmy Buffett tribute for the parrotheads, a Queen tribute for the bohemian belters, Bidi Bidi Banda (a beloved Selena tribute) sparking a conga line across the turf, and a modern tribute to Luke Combs for the boot-scooters. Throw in a pop-punk night dedicated to the Blink-182 era, a Yacht Rock party and a full-on 90s night, and you’ve basically got a time machine with a bar tab.

On July 31, the DFW Beastie Boys tribute Rhymin’ N Stealin’ rolls through, and if you don’t leave with “Sabotage” ringing in your ears, you did it wrong.

“Rollertown Beer Works is one of our favorite venues to play,” says Kyle Smith, aka Ad-Rock, of Rhymin’ N Stealin’. “The staff is fantastic, the atmosphere is electric and the crowd always brings great energy.”

So, no sleep ’till Frisco, folks.

It’s not all tributes, either. Rollertown books the real deal too, from Bowling for Soup to Paul Wall to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony to That Mexican OT. The fall lineup brings Josh Abbott Band, Pedro Capó and the POP 2000 Tour with *NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick and O-Town. And then there’s the truly unhinged stuff, like the “Jaws” dive-in movie night, where you can float in a kiddie pool, sip a themed cocktail and watch Spielberg’s shark terrorize a beach, complete with a giant water slide.

The man orchestrating this happy chaos is Dale Brock, Rollertown’s director of events and experiences, and he makes no apologies for the mission.

“We love to throw a party. I often say ‘we sell fun,'” he says. “It’s both exciting and gratifying to see hard-working people cut loose on a weekend night reliving memories of the music they grew up with.”

The venue itself does a lot of the heavy lifting.

“Outdoor shows under the Texas nighttime sky are something special,” Brock says.

The vibe is laidback and easy, food trucks steaming, outdoor bars pouring and those dramatic silos looming behind the stage. Every so often a freight train rumbles past, just 50 yards away, and the silos swallow the noise whole.

The full lineup is waiting on the Rollertown’s events page — and your favorite song is already tuning up. Best of all, tickets start at between $5 and $10, which is roughly the cost of feeling young again. You’ll find it all at 6450 Main St. in Frisco.