The 10 Best Concerts of the Week: Queen, Shawn Mendes, Beck and More

By now, you're a little past the halfway mark and just need to survive another month of summer. Well, that still calls for a celebration, a weeklong celebration full of live music. Shawn Mendes can help you get the party started at American Airlines Center. Afterward, if you're trying to save some gas money, go ahead and sleep in your car because you'll have to be right back there the next day if you want to see Queen + Adam Lambert. Then, you'll get a day off before you can crank this party up to 11 with Luna Luna or Julia Holter. Just don't wear yourself out too much because you've got a big weekend ahead of you with performances by the likes of Beck, Cage the Elephant, Slightly Stoopid and more. Check in next week for some more excuses to go see live music.

Shawn Mendes
7:30 p.m. Monday, July 22, at American Airlines Center, 2500 Victory Ave., $50 at ticketmaster.com

Shawn Mendes has come a long way in the last few years. In 2013, he got his start posting videos of himself performing cover songs on the now-dead video application Vine. After releasing a self-titled EP, Mendes came out with his first full-length album Handwritten in 2015. Over the next few years, Mendes would come out with two more albums, producing several top 10 singles in several countries. Before he was 18, Mendes had three albums debut on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. Now 20 years old, Mendes is touring through North America. Jacob Vaughn

Queen + Adam Lambert
8 p.m. Tuesday, July 23, at American Airlines Center, 2500 Victory Ave., $780 at ticketmaster.com

One of the first times singer Adam Lambert met Brian May and Roger Taylor, performing members of Queen, was on the set of American Idol in 2009. It was the same year the former rendition of the band Queen + Paul Rogers stopped performing together. Lambert likely couldn't have met May and Taylor, the guitarist and drummer for Queen, at a better time in his career. Around this time, May had seen a video of Lambert performing "Bohemian Rhapsody" and began considering him as Rogers' replacement. The trio played a handful of shows together starting in 2011, but since 2014, they've been touring the world. While the show at American Airlines Center costs more than a pretty penny, the band never seems to disappoint, so it should be worth it. Jacob Vaughn

Luna Luna
7 p.m. Thursday, July 25, at Main at South Side, 1002 S. Main St., Fort Worth, $10 at prekindle.com

The modern-indie Dallas megaband Luna Luna just released their second EP since they formed in 2017. The all-Hispanic sextet gave everyone a taste of their new EP with the release of their single "Feelings in Me" at the beginning of the month. Now, they have some Texas dates lined up, but only two shows in DFW before they're bound for San Antonio and Austin, so you might as well just go see them this week while they're close. Jacob Vaughn   

Julia Holter
8 p.m. Thursday, July 25, at Deep Ellum Art Co., 3200 Commerce St., $15-$17 at eventbrite.com

Shapeshifting composer, keyboardist and singer Julia Holter is an architect of sprawling, visionary chamber pop. Her meticulously manicured works hinge on a push and pull between avant minimalism and experimental obfuscation, a realm where deep truths lie buried under layers of mist like Rorschach slides waiting to be unwound. Weaving a circuitous through-line between auteurs like Kate Bush, Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson, Holter’s art is pop music glimpsed through the haze of a dream. By comparison, Ana Roxanne’s hushed vignettes are acutely insular and transportively naked. Another Los Angeles artist on the vanguard of contemporary art music, Roxanne’s ambient music leans heavier toward the “furniture music” of Erik Satie than the panoramic soundscapes of Brian Eno. Hers is a music that’s barely there. In its delicate wash of nature sounds, droning synths and new age pastels, it achieves an intimacy somewhere between meditative and spiritual — background music that works as a trap door to deep, personal introspection, or simply as beautiful colors drifting through your headspace. Jonathan Patrick

Slightly Stoopid
8 p.m. Friday, July 26, at The Bomb Factory, 2713 Canton St., $15 at ticketfly.com

The award-winning reggae bands Tribal Seeds Matisyahu and HIRIE all hopped on tour with California blues-rock-reggae-hip-hop blend Slightly Stoopid. They'll all be at The Bomb Factory for the only North Texas gig set for the Slightly Stoopid: How I Spent My Summer Vacation Tour. Slightly Stoopid has not put out any new music since 2018 when they released their ninth studio album Everyday Life, Everyday People. However, at the beginning of this month, the band released a music video for its song "One More Night" off the latest album, helping kick off the tour. The tour will end on the West Coast. If you want to procrastinate and travel all that way, go ahead, but you'll probably save some money if you just see them while all these bands are in town. Jacob Vaughn

We Were Promised Jetpacks
8 p.m. Friday, July 26, at Club Dada, 2720 Elm St., $20 at eventbrite.com

Among the many things that come to mind when someone mentions Scotland, underrated emo post-rock is probably near the bottom of the list. But We Were Promised Jetpacks is the reason that would be on the list in the first place. One of Scotland’s most notable exports, the band is probably best known by their 2009 anthem “Quiet Little Voices” off their debut album These Four Walls. A gem of the latter heydays of 2000s pop-punk, the album seemingly didn’t get its due as the wheel of trends spun away from sappy rockers and on to sappy singers. Criticized for repetitious lyrics and a tone deemed to be too earnest for some, both qualities can now be found in abundance on all manner of 2019 radio stations and music sales charts. It’s more likely that We Were Promised Jetpacks just missed the boat on the days of listening to an entire album from start to finish. Because when you do that, the 11 tracks on These Four Walls can stand alongside any world-eating Jimmy or Dashboard Confessional. Nick Bostick

Beck, Cage The Elephant, Spoon and Wild Belle
6 p.m. Saturday, July 27, at Dos Equis Pavilion, 3839 S. Fitzhugh Ave., $31 at livenation.com

In the midst of the hottest part of the summer, Dos Equis Pavilion will be hosting one of the season's coolest shows on Saturday night. Co-headlined by multiple Grammy Award winner and sonic innovator Beck and alternative rock titans Cage The Elephant, the Night Running Tour should prove to be a pretty cutting-edge evening of tunes. Beck, of course, has been releasing music since the early '90s, when his laconic albums Mellow Gold and Odelay set the template for creative, slacker rock. Cage The Elephant have followed a similar, stratospheric trajectory, vaulting from scrappy punk-rock side stages to arena and festival headliners in less than a decade. And if these two aren't enough to be excited about, this tour also features Spoon, the mighty indie rock craftsmen with Texas connections whose history and influence could fill another couple of paragraphs in this preview if time and space allowed for such a thing. Psych-rock duo Wild Belle will open up the festivities. Jeff Strowe

Hannah Wicklund & The Steppin Stones
9:30 p.m. Saturday, July 27, at Sundown at Granada, 3520 Greenville Ave., $9-$12 at prekindle.com

Like many bands, Los Angeles-based Hannah Wicklund & The Steppin Stones have a long history. It all started when frontwoman and singer-songwriter Wicklund was 8 years old. Backed by rock 'n' roll trio The Steppin Stones, the band began exclusively playing Janis Joplin and Neil Young covers. Twelve years later, the band released its first full-length self-titled album. Since then, the band has played alongside acts like Tom Petty, Cage the Elephant and Muse. While they're set to play a bunch of shows for the rest of the year, Hannah Wicklund & The Steppin Stones are also spending some time in the studio, so be on the lookout for new music after you see them this Saturday. Jacob Vaughn

The Red Pears
7 p.m. Saturday, July 27, at The Foundry, 2303 Pittman St., free

One hot summer day in 2014, a seed was planted somewhere around El Monte, California. It happened the moment musicians Henry Vargas and José Corona started talking about starting a band. The two played their first show, with Vargas on guitar and vocals, Corona on drums, at an open mic hosted by a local church. However, the tree that would later produce The Red Pears didn't really take root until the addition of Patrick Juarez on bass. About a year into its growth, the band released their album We Bring Anything to the Table … Except Tables, We Can’t Bring Tables to the Table and that was it. The Red Pears finally fell from the tree and were ready to be consumed by the masses. That means you. Get your bite this weekend at The Foundry. Jacob Vaughn

Jason Lytle & Tim DeLaughter "Live From the Astroturf"
9 p.m. Saturday, July 27, at Good Records, 9026 Garland Road, free

Jason Lytle of the indie-rock band Grandaddy will play a full piano set at Good Records' new Live From the Astroturf stage. The show is being promoted as the commemorative set for the store's grand opening.
The well-curated record store moved from its home of 14 years on Greenville Avenue to Garland Road back in March and its Live From the Astroturf shows have become one of the most popular and intimate concert series in town. Past sets include Jeff Tweedy, Alice Cooper and Conor Oberst, among others. The best part about these shows is that they're free, and sometimes even include free beer and snacks. Saturday night's show offers priority admittance with purchase of Lytle's latest LP NYLONANDJUNO. While Grandaddy did reunite in 2012 and release an album in 2017, Lytle has focused on his solo career since 2009 and has seen much success. Tripping Daisy's Tim DeLaughter will start the evening off with an acoustic guitar fiddle set. Diamond Rodrigue