Concert News

Dallas' Dos Equis Pavilion hawks mega-lawn pass for summer concerts

It's not too soon to be thinking about summer concerts.

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It's only March but it's not too soon to be thinking about summer concert season, and Live Nation has a deal: The entertainment company is offering a Lawn Pass for one price that gets you into shows at Dos Equis Pavilion all summer long, even including sold out shows.

According to a release, the Lawn Pass can be purchased for $199. The venue will have a limited number of Lawn Passes available, and passes go on sale starting Wednesday, March 2 at 12 pm at LawnPass.LiveNation.com, while supplies last.

Live Nation has offered other such concert deals in the past, including a similar Lawn Pass in 2019; they've also done promotions featuring cheap $20 tickets for certain shows.

The program will be available at 30 venues for the 2022 summer concert season, which they predict will be one of the biggest in history.

Music fans who are able to snag one of the limited-edition passes will have access to an incredible lineup of various acts across county, rock, pop, hip-hop, and much more.

Shows currently include, but are not limited to: 5 Seconds of Summer, AJR, The Avett Brothers, Brandi Carlile, Big Time Rush, The Backstreet Boys, The Black Keys, CHEER Live, Chris Stapleton, Chicago, Coheed & Cambria, Dave Matthews Band, Deftones, Dispatch and O.A.R., The Doobie Brothers, Foo Fighters, Goo Goo Dolls, Halsey, Iron Maiden, Jack Johnson, Jack White, Jason Aldean, Jimmy Buffett, Josh Groban, Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney, KISS, Knotfest Roadshow (Slipknot), Lil Durk, Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert & Little Big Town, The Lumineers, Nick Cannon Presents: MTV Wild N Out Live, Nine Inch Nails, OneRepublic, Phish, Rebelution, REO Speedwagon and Styx with Loverboy, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Rod Stewart, Santana + Earth, Wind & Fire, Sammy Hagar, Snoop Dogg & Ice Cube, Steely Dan, Tears for Fears, Third Eye Blind, Tim McGraw, Zac Brown Band and many more. (Concert calendar varies by venue; visit venue website for complete list of shows by venue.)

Fans can check their local venue to see their specific summer lineup, with more shows to be announced throughout the coming months.

To purchase the pass, fans can visit lawnpass-staging.livenation.com and use the dropdown menu to select their desired amphitheater.

Each Lawn Pass purchaser receives a custom personalized credential with their name that serves as their ticket on each show day. Come on, that's cool.

The full list of participating amphitheaters include:

Ak-Chin Pavilion (Phoenix AZ)
Blossom Music Center (Cuyahoga Falls, OH)
Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek (Raleigh, NC)
Concord Pavilion (Concord, CA)
Darien Lake Amphitheater (Darien Center, NY)
Dos Equis Pavilion (Dallas, TX)
Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre – Tinley Park (Tinley Park, IL)
Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre – St. Louis (St. Louis, MO)
Isleta Amphitheater (Albuquerque, NM)
iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre (West Palm Beach, FL)
Jiffy Lube Live (Bristow, VA)
Lakewood Amphitheatre (Atlanta, GA) - Formerly Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood
MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre (Tampa, FL)
North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre (Chula Vista, CA)
PNC Bank Arts Center (Holmdel, NJ)
PNC Music Pavilion (Charlotte, NC)
Ruoff Music Center (Noblesville, IN)
RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater (Ridgefield, WA)
Saratoga Performing Arts Center (Saratoga Springs, NY)
Shoreline Amphitheatre (Mountain View, CA)
St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview (Syracuse, NY)
The Pavilion at Montage Mountain (Scranton, PA)
The Pavilion At Star Lake (Burgettstown, PA)
Toyota Amphitheatre (Wheatland, CA)
USANA Amphitheatre (West Valley City, UT)
Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach (Virginia Beach, VI)
Waterfront Music Pavilion (Camden, NJ) – Formerly BB&T Pavilion
White River Amphitheatre (Auburn, WA)
Xfinity Center (Mansfield, MA)
XFINITY Theatre (Hartford, CT)

Further details and restrictions for the Lawn Pass can be found at LawnPass.LiveNation.com.

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Movie Review

Much-anticipated film sequel Gladiator II tells a very familiar story

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II.

There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.

The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).

Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.

Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.

Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.

The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.

Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.

Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.

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Gladiator II opens in theaters on November 22.

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