17 OctOber 30 - NOvember 5, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Nikki Lane 8 P.M. FRIDAY, OCT. 31, GRANADA THEATER, 3524 GREENVILLE AVE. $34+ AT PREKINDLE.COM Singer-songwriter Nikki Lane has released just one song under her name this year, but it packs an outsized wallop. “Woodruff City Limit,” which Lane dropped back in June, is a shatter- ing work composed in the wake of Lane’s fa- ther’s death in 2024: “Learned about pain before I learned to speak,” she sings in one dev- astating lyric. The embrace of life’s rough edges isn’t new to Lane — the South Carolina native has long balanced the sour and the sweet to mesmerizing effect across her four studio al- bums, including her latest, 2022’s Denim & Dia- monds. It’s part and parcel of her studied resistance to what country music in the 21st century should look and sound like, as she told The Independent three years ago: “I grew up knowing who Loretta Lynn was. But I was from the South, and we were trying to fight against old country music. Southern teenage girls want to go out and get tattoos and go against all that.” J. Isaiah Evans & the Boss Tweed will open. PRESTON JONES Patty Griffin and Rickie Lee Jones 8 P.M. SATURDAY, NOV. 1, LONGHORN BALLROOM, 216 CORINTH ST. $44+ AT PREKINDLE.COM As the old saw goes, Patty Griffin wasn’t born in Texas, but she got here as fast as she could. The Maine-born singer-songwriter relocated to Aus- tin in 1997, where she’s lived ever since, steadily building up a catalog of peerless songcraft that has won her no small amount of acclaim — A- listers like Kelly Clarkson, Miranda Lambert and Taylor Swift are all on record as being inspired by Griffin’s work — and plenty of industry acco- lades, including multiple Grammys and the life- time achievement award from the Americana Music Honors & Awards in 2023. The 61-year-old musician is touring behind her first studio album in six years, Crown of Roses, and she’ll be joined for this date by another titan of troubadour- dom, Ricki Lee Jones, whose most recent LP is 2023’s Pieces of Treasure. PJ MANÁ 8:30 P.M. SATURDAY, NOV. 1-SUNDAY, NOV. 2, AMERICAN AIRLINES CENTER, 2500 VICTORY AVE. $50+ AT TICKETMASTER.COM Mexican rock act MANÁ is approaching nearly 40 years in the business in 2025 and continues to break new ground, recently becoming the first-ever Spanish-language act to be nominated for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “We want to share this recognition with all Lati- nos everywhere, especially the immigrants who are suffering right now,” said lead singer Fher Olvera in a statement. “Don’t lose faith. Our peo- ple always find a way. MANÁ loves you.” That af- firmation will be made manifest in the band’s ongoing VIVIR SIN AIRE Tour, which will take over Dallas for a two-night stand. Although the band hasn’t released any new music in a decade — 2015’s Cama Incendiada is the most recent LP — the quartet has an expansive back catalog to power its setlists. PJ Mammoth 7 P.M. TUESDAY, NOV. 4, HOUSE OF BLUES, 2200 N. LAMAR. $49+ AT TICKETMASTER.COM It’s breathtaking to consider the ease with which Wolfgang Van Halen has assumed the mantle of responsibility for his family’s musical legacy. Originally known as Mammoth WVH (until ear- lier this year, when it became simply Mammoth), this project began as a side project for Wolf- gang while he played with his father Eddie’s band, Van Halen. When Van Halen called it quits in 2020, Wolfgang spun up Mammoth as a full- time concern, enlisting four other musicians to build out three albums and continue the bound- ary-pushing brand of rock and roll his father popularized. “I think songwriting within itself for me is a cathartic thing,” Wolfgang told Loudwire earlier this month. “The idea that I think I’ve just been reckoning with [is] that no matter what I do, somebody somewhere is going to be really fucking angry with me. So I might as well just embrace it and try to have fun with it at the end of the day.” With Myles Kennedy and Return to Dust. PJ Big Thief 8 P.M. TUESDAY, NOV. 4, THE BOMB FACTORY, 2713 CANTON ST. $72+ AT AXS.COM Big Thief — vocalist-guitarist Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, drummer James Krivchenia (and, in concert, bassist Joshua Crumbly) — made a splash with its 2022 double album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. It was the group’s last with founding bassist Max Oleartchik, who departed in 2024, and this year’s Double Infinity, Big Thief’s sixth overall studio album, is the first work since Oleartchik split from the group. “If you’re open to it, being in a band is such a beautiful space to be a teacher for relationships,” Krivchenia told Pitch- fork last month. “We always could have gone down the easier path, but I want the compli- cated, messy, beautiful, twisted thing. I don’t want to just be alone, even though it’d be easier, because it’s not gonna fulfill this deeper gut urge.” With Lomelda. PJ | LET’S DO THIS | t Music Michael Buishas Big Thief performs at The Bomb Factory on Nov. 4
