Open Air Concerts

The best Dallas-Fort Worth outdoor concerts for families in summer 2018

Even with the temperatures rising, plenty of venues in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will present outdoor concert series this spring and summer. These seasonal outings make for fun family picnics, great friend-gatherings, and romantic date nights under the stars.

Tribute bands are a big theme, but you can also get your fill of original artists, classical music, and more. Below are the best places to listen to music in the great outdoors this summer. And as a bonus, nearly all of them are completely free.

Box Garden at Legacy Hall Concert Series
Foodies have had months to enjoy all of the food options at Legacy Hall in Plano, and now The Box Garden, their outdoor beer garden and live entertainment venue, is up-and-running with a new performer almost every day. The series focuses on all-local musicians, running the gamut from up-and-comers to established veterans like The Polyphonic Spree and Kirk Thurmond.

Dallas Arboretum presents Cool Thursdays Concert Series
Boasting one of the best views in Dallas-Fort Worth alongside White Rock Lake, the Dallas Arboretum's Cool Thursday Series continues through June 28 before taking a break until after Labor Day. Among the tribute and party bands on the docket over the next month include U2 by UV, Memphis Soul, Rio (Duran Duran), The Prince Experience, and Sounds of Summer (The Beach Boys).

Dallas Zoo presents Safari Nights
Dallas Zoo's Safari Nights concert series features original artists and tribute bands who will fill the park with music every Saturday night. Free with zoo admission, it allows guests to enjoy all that the zoo has to offer before settling down for the concert. Taking place through July 14, it'll feature bands like Desperado (Eagles tribute band), Trout Fishing in America, and The O's.

Levitt Pavilion presents Music Under the Stars
Every weekend through July 22, the Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts in Arlington welcomes in local, regional, and national artists to perform for the masses. Performers this summer will include Vocal Trash, Bowling for Soup, Green River Ordinance, Rick Trevino, Radney Foster, and Marcia Ball. As a bonus, they also show the occasional movie, like Frozen, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, and Mamma Mia.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Parks Concerts
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra decamps from the Meyerson Symphony Center and takes its act outside with the Parks Concerts series. Over the course of two weeks between May 28 and June 12, Assistant Conductor Ruth Reinhardt will lead the DSO in a program featuring light classics, patriotic tunes, and other popular fare. Concerts will take place at Flag Pole Hill, Timberglen Park, Crawford Memorial Park, Kidd Springs Park, and Paul Quinn College.

Sounds of Lewisville
Sounds of Lewisville is a free concert series that has been going strong for close to 30 years. Taking place at Wayne Ferguson Plaza in Lewisville, it will feature a tribute band-heavy lineup every Tuesday in June and July. Among the performers will be Just Like P!nk, Me & My Monkey (Beatles tribute), Las Vegas Nights with Elvis, Forever Mac (Fleetwood Mac tribute), and Dancing Dream (ABBA tribute).

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra presents Concerts in the Garden
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra's annual Concerts in the Garden series is always highly anticipated, presenting a variety of great music every weekend in June. Among the popular events at Fort Worth Botanic Garden this season will be The Music of Michael Jackson, Star Wars and Beyond: A Laser Light Spectacular, The Music of Journey, and Old 97's. As always, the series will end with the Old-Fashioned Family Fireworks Picnic, taking place the nights of July 2-4.

Vitruvian Nights Live
Vitruvian Nights Live will feature popular party and tribute artists every other Thursday night starting June 14 in the amphitheater at Vitruvian Park in Addison. Performers will include Emerald City, Warehouse (Dave Matthews Band tribute band), King George (George Strait tribute band), The Landsharks (Jimmy Buffett tribute band), and Blaze of Glory (Bon Jovi tribute band). In addition to the live music, guests may purchase bites from food trucks and shop from the mobile boutiques.

Panther Island Pavilion presents Rockin’ the River
Once the weather gets blazin' hot in July, head to Panther Island Pavilion in Fort Worth for the Rockin' the River series. Taking place July 7-August 11, it features live bands, a fireworks show, and the ability to take it all in from a tube on the Trinity River or from the shore. Headliners will include Micky and the Motorcars, Kody West, Cody Canada and the Departed, The Dirty River Boys, Dalton Domino, and Shinyribs.

The Cool Thursdays Concert Series takes place at Dallas Arboretum through June 28, starting up again on September 6.

Cool Thursdays Concert Series at Dallas Arboretum

Photo courtesy of Dallas Arboretum

The Cool Thursdays Concert Series takes place at Dallas Arboretum through June 28, starting up again on September 6.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first but not by much

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films likeM3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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