Weekend Event Planner

These are the 12 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

It's a big weekend in Dallas, and not just because the biggest event of the year is making its long-awaited return. There will be two different concerts from country music legends, the start of a LEGO exhibition, the kickoff to Halloween season, a visit from '60s pop stars, a variety of openings in the Dallas Arts District, and more.

Below are the best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend.

Thursday, September 23

Brooks & Dunn in concert with Travis Tritt and Tucker Beathard
There has been no more successful duo in the history of country music than Brooks & Dunn. Over the 18-year period between their debut in 1991 and retirement in 2009, they had five No. 1 albums on the Billboard Country charts and 20 No. 1 hits, not to mention the multitude of others that made the top 10. They'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion, with help from Travis Tritt and Tucker Beathard.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Luisi Conducts Aus Italien
The latest concert from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will include selections like Carl Maria von Weber's Overture to Oberon, Joan Tower's "Flute Concerto," and Richard Strauss' Aus Italien. The concert, which will feature flutist David Buck under the direction of Fabio Luisi, will be performed just twice at Meyerson Symphony Center, once on Thursday and once on Sunday.

Friday, September 24

Perot Museum of Nature and Science presents "Towers of Tomorrow with LEGO Bricks"
"Towers of Tomorrow with LEGO Bricks," the Perot Museum of Nature and Science's newest exhibition, features 20 iconic skyscrapers from across the globe constructed with more than half a million LEGO bricks. After interacting with the intricate structures, which include everything from the world’s tallest building to the Empire State Building, guests are encouraged to create their own "tower of tomorrow" in construction areas, which are equipped with more than 200,000 LEGO bricks. The exhibition will remain on display through April 24, 2022.

State Fair of Texas
It's been two years since people have been able to indulge in fried foods, stroll the Midway, ride the Texas Star, or see everything else that makes the State Fair of Texas the iconic event that it is, so you can expect visitors to be extra excited to visit Fair Park this year. The 24-day event, running through October 17, also features daily concerts, animal shows, butter sculptures, and much more, making it a festival for all the senses. For a list of all the admission discounts, go here.

Wynonna & Cactus: "Party of Two"
Country music legends Wynonna Judd & Cactus Moser make their Kessler Theater debut with this concert. Whether performing alongside her mother as one half of the legendary duo The Judds, or pushing the boundaries on her own solo path, Wynonna has an ability to reach the heart of the human spirit through her bold and unflinching honesty. The concert, which will have two performances, will include stripped-down songs and stories.

Halloween events
Even though Halloween is over a month away, now is the time when Halloween events get their start. Among the events available are Howell Farms' Pumpkin Nights in Arlington, a family-friendly option featuring over 5,000 hand-carved real and artificial pumpkins; and multiple haunted attractions, including Six Flags Over Texas' Fright Fest, Dark Hour Haunted House in Plano, J&F House of Terror in Garland, and Reindeer Manor Halloween Park in Red Oak.

Improv Arlington presents Jay Pharoah
During his tenure on Saturday Night Live, Jay Pharoah proved himself to be one of the show's most talented and popular cast members, mostly thanks to his uncanny impressions of Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Stephen A. Smith, Kanye West, and Chris Tucker. Since his unceremonious firing from that show, he's stayed extremely busy, with parts in multiple movies and TV shows. He'll perform five times through Sunday at Improv Arlington.

The Monkees in concert
Billed as “An Evening With The Monkees,” this concert will feature songs that span the band’s entire 50+ year career, from their 1966 self-titled debut to 2016’s Good Times. Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz released their first-ever live album, The Monkees - The Mike and Micky Show, in 2020. The concert will be at Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie.

Uptown Players presents A Very Sordid Wedding
It's 2015, 17 years after Peggy tripped over G.W.'s wooden legs and died in Sordid Lives, and life has moved into the present for the residents of Winters, Texas. Based on the 2017 hit film of the same name, A Very Sordid Wedding explores the questions, bigotry, and the fallout of what happens when gay marriage comes to communities and families that are not quite ready to accept it. Uptown Players will present the production at Kalita Humphreys Theater through October 3.

Saturday, September 25

Crow Museum of Asian Art presents Ho Tzu Nyen: "The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia" opening day
The Crow Museum of Asian Art of The University of Texas at Dallas will present the U.S. premiere of "The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia" by internationally renowned artist Ho Tzu Nyen. At the heart of the exhibition is an always-changing video and LED light installation in which an algorithm weaves together a rich tapestry of texts, music, and found footage pertaining to an alphabetized list of concepts, generating different permutations with every loop. The exhibition will remain on display through January 30, 2022.

Nasher Sculpture Center opening and closing
It's moving weekend at Nasher Sculpture Center. Opening on Saturday is Betye Saar: "Call and Response," the first exhibition to examine the relationship between Saar’s sketchbooks, which she has kept since the late 1960s, and her finished works. The exhibition, on display through January 2, 2022, features approximately 40 objects and covers the span of the artist’s career. Closing on Sunday is "Nasher Mixtape," which offers a compilation of “tracks,” micro-exhibitions focused on the Nasher’s permanent collection.

Sunday, September 26

Dallas Museum of Art openings
The Dallas Museum of Art will open two new exhibitions on Sunday. Naudline Pierre: "What Could Be Has Not Yet Appeared" is the first solo museum exhibition of works by Pierre, whose vividly hued paintings portray opaque, otherworldly narratives through depictions of supernatural beings entangled in complex scenes of struggle and intimacy. It will be on display through May 15, 2022. "Point, Line, Plane: The William Jordan and Robert Brownlee Bequest" honors a gift from the estate of distinguished art historian William B. Jordan and his husband, Robert Dean Brownlee, highlighting a selection of nearly 70 works donated to the DMA by Jordan and Brownlee. It will be on display through January 9, 2022.

The State Fair of Texas is back at Fair Park, starting on September 24.

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The State Fair of Texas is back at Fair Park, starting on September 24.

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RIP, Frank

Frank Beard, drummer of legendary Texas rock band ZZ Top, dies at 77

Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

He kept the tempo for the band’s biggest hits like 'Sharp Dressed Man,' 'Legs,' and 'Gimme All Your Lovin.'

NEW YORK (AP) — Frank Beard, the drummer for the Texas boogie-rock trio ZZ Top who kept the tempo for the band’s biggest hits like “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs,” and “Gimme All Your Lovin,’” has died. He was 77.

Beard was in hospice care when he died Tuesday, August 18 at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, near Houston, with family members at his side, according to publicist Bob Merlis. Band co-founder and guitarist Billy Gibbons, on tour with bassist Elwood Francis, hailed Beard in a statement.

“Today, Elwood and I lost a great friend and collaborator, and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas. His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top. The band of which he was part for six decades is going to keep on keeping on as he had wished,” Gibbons said.

ZZ Top sold more than 50 million records and had six singles that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Seven of their albums have been in the Billboard 200’s Top 10 and they earned three Grammy Award nominations.

“I’ve found the people I was meant to play with,” Beard says in the 2019 documentary ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas. “I never wanted to quit, and never wanted to get fired.”

Band's early days
Beard, from the East Texas town of Frankston, met Gibbons in a band called The Moving Sidewalks and later introduced bassist and vocalist Dusty Hill, a Dallas native, who had been in several bands with Beard.

The trio formed ZZ Top in 1969, naming themselves in part after blues singer Z.Z. Hill and influenced by the British power trio Cream and Jimmy Reed. They maintained their original lineup for more than five decades. Their signature look — long, bushy beards on Gibbons and Hill, and dark sunglasses for all — didn’t change much, either.

When Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards helped induct the trio into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, he joked: “These cats know their blues and they know how to dress it up. When I first saw them, I thought, ‘I hope these guys are not on the run, because that disguise is not going to work.’”

ZZ Top songs — with their sly and humorous lyrics — were popular in Hollywood, which used “Gimme All Your Lovin’” in “Happy Feet,” “Sharp Dressed Man” in “Evan Almighty,” “Legs” in “Air,” “Sleeping Bag” in “I, Tonya,” “Tush” in “Dazed and Confused,” “Mexican Blackbird” in “From Dusk Till Dawn” and “La Grange” in “Armageddon.”

“The best way to describe ZZ Top is we’re interpreters of a great American art form,” Gibbons told The Dallas Morning News.

Their debut release, “ZZ Top’s First Album,” came out in 1970. Their sound was described as a hybrid mixing elements of rock, blues and funk into a steaming-hot Houston stew. They called themselves a “Little Ol’ Band From Texas.”

Breaking through
Three years later, they broke through commercially with “La Grange,” a funky blues song on the album “Tres Hombres” that paid tribute to the Chicken Ranch, a brothel outside of the Texas town of La Grange that operated from 1905 until 1973 and was immortalized in the Broadway show and the film, “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” Gibbons has ascribed the power of “La Grange" to its simplicity — just two chords and a Robert Johnson-inspired guitar solo.

The band went on to have such hits as “Tush” and “Cheap Sunglasses.” But their 1983 “Eliminator” — named after one of Gibbons’ custom cars — added more production elements, synthesizers and drum machines to their stripped-down sound and yielded the hits “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Legs” and “Sharp-Dressed Man.” The band toured with a Texas-shaped stage, live rattlesnakes and a longhorn steer.

Long beards weren’t always part of the band’s look. Gibbons said it happened by accident: In 1976, the trio took a long break and scattered. Beard went to Jamaica, Hill went to Mexico and Gibbons went to France.

“Although we were speaking by phone, this was pre-video phone. And Dusty and I did not know that we had gotten so lazy that we had decided to forget to shave,” Gibbons told The Tribune in San Luis Obispo in 2010. “So after three years we returned and showed up, and lo and behold here was this sort of wacky-looking image. And it just kind of stuck with us.”

A boost from MTV
The band’s rock-chic cool played well on the nascent MTV crowd and their videos, featuring models in short skirts emerging from one of Gibbons’ custom roadsters, became a mainstay.

They kept the beards, hats and cheap sunglasses in the video trilogy of “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Legs,” made with director Tim Newman.

“ZZ Top reveled in the humor and ridiculousness of it all, busting their synchronized dance moves and spinning their white-fur guitars. These guys always got the joke, at a time when other bands were still just nervously lip-syncing in front of brick walls,” Rolling Stone said in 2021.

In 2012, superstar producer Rick Rubin helped update the trio’s sound with the band’s comeback album, “La Futura.” The album landed at No. 6 on the Billboard chart, their highest position since 1990's “Recycler,” some 22 years previously.

Hill died in 2021.

In March 2025, the band announced via Instagram that Beard would temporarily step away from the band’s tour to tend to foot and ankle problems. Beard died weeks after ZZ Top called off its August 5 concert at the Hollywood Bowl due to his health issues.

Beard is survived by his wife, Debbie Meredith, and three children.

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