Heather and I went down to the Starplex (yeah, I know, it’s changed names a few times since then, but it’s just easier) to catch her favorite band. We stopped to check out a new restaurant we’d seen, because we wanted to have dinner before getting down to the mess that is the area around Fair Park. The FM Smoke House is in the building that housed the Bennigan’s in Las Colinas. It’s a small Texas chain, featuring good barbecue, lots of Texas beers on tap, and a huge selection of whiskies. The food was excellent, the service was great, and if we weren’t going to a concert I might have had a few more beers.
After dinner we got down to the venue, snagged our section of the lawn, and waited for the show to start. The opening act was Mariachi El Bronx, playing a sort of cross between mariachi music and American urban folk, if that makes any sense. Just follow the link and listen. They were fun, interacting well with the crowd, and played some damn good music. Dave even popped on stage to introduce them at the beginning of their set.
Once they were done there was the usual teardown and setup between acts, then Dave and the band took the stage. I’m deferring to Heather here, because I don’t know their catalog well at all, but she says that they dug deep into their catalog for the sets. Even playing some stuff that isn’t on any studio or live albums that she has, and she’s got all of their studio albums. The show was great, Dave was as goofy as ever, fussing at the crowd to not “catch a chill” due to how cold it was (being in the high 80s at that point). The crowd was pretty good too, with only one example of drunken stupidity that stood out. Before the opening act even took the stage some drunk dude tumbled off the lawn area and bounced his head off the concrete wall loud enough for us to hear it a good 15m – 20m away. He was carted off on a wheel chair pretty quickly, and I’m betting that he’s regretting his actions by now. Other than that, it was a great show, and one that you shouldn’t miss if you ever get a chance to go see.