Two of the biggest shows of the year land on the same Tuesday night, Rush is playing four nights in Fort Worth, and the small rooms are holding their own. This week gives you almost too many reasons to be somewhere with speakers pointed at you. Here’s what’s worth your time, by night.
TUESDAY, JUNE 23
The big one is Shakira at American Airlines Center at 8:30 p.m. She headlined Globe Life Field last year and sold it out. This run is a smaller arena configuration, which means the production is still massive and the room is more manageable. The Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour is the closing chapter of a record that dominated streaming charts globally, and Shakira’s live show has always delivered more than the pop radio version suggests. This is the concert of the week at the arena level — full stop.
Across the Metroplex at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, 5 Seconds of Summer play at 8 p.m. The Australian band has been making records since their One Direction touring days in 2013 and has steadily built a catalog that long ago outgrew the pop-punk label that followed them from the beginning. Their sixth album Everyone’s a Star landed high on charts across the world in 2025. If you have teenagers, this is the show. If you don’t, it’s still worth knowing the room will be full of energy from the first song.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24
The night’s most important show is at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth at 7:30 p.m. — and it runs through June 30. Rush: Fifty Something is the first Rush tour in more than a decade. After Neil Peart’s death in 2020, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson had been widely expected to step away from the band permanently. Instead they’ve brought in German drummer Anika Nilles and built a show around the 50th anniversary of the band’s founding, playing two full sets each night with distinct song selections across the run. Rush last played Dallas in 2015. Every night of this residency is a different show, which means the people who were already at Tuesday’s show are buying tickets for Thursday. Tickets are available but not waiting around.
JINJER plays House of Blues Dallas at 6 p.m. on Wednesday. The Ukrainian metal band has built one of the most devoted followings in heavy music over the past decade, driven in equal parts by their technical ferocity and by the profile their work has taken on since the Russian invasion of their country in 2022. Frontwoman Tatiana Shmailyuk is one of the most technically gifted vocalists in metal — clean singing and growls within the same phrase, often within the same measure. The Duel North America 2026 tour has been selling out rooms across the country. House of Blues has a good balcony for this one if the floor fills early.
At South Side Music Hall at 7 p.m., Spite with Emmure brings the metalcore program to the south side of the city. Spite has been one of the genre’s most consistent acts for the better part of the last decade, and Emmure are road veterans who have been making records since 2006. If Wednesday night is a metal night, House of Blues and South Side together cover both ends of the heaviness spectrum.
At Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall in Fort Worth at 8 p.m., Augustana and Phantom Planet share a bill that is going to produce a very specific kind of 2000s nostalgia in a very satisfied room. Augustana’s Boston still gets played on adult contemporary radio. Phantom Planet’s California became the theme song for The O.C. in 2003 and has never left the cultural conversation since. Two bands, one evening, a crowd that will know every word to everything.
THURSDAY, JUNE 25
Five for Fighting and Edwin McCain play Arlington Music Hall at 8 p.m. — two songwriters from the early 2000s whose best-known songs (Superman, I’ll Be) have the staying power that marks genuine catalog artists rather than one-hit radio memories. Arlington Music Hall is a seated venue that rewards this format: intimate enough that the songs land differently than they do in a larger room, and the crowd that shows up for a Thursday night at Arlington Music Hall is there for the music specifically.
Primus plays the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving. Les Claypool’s bass work is one of the more singular things in American rock — there is nobody who plays quite like him, and nobody whose audience looks quite the same as his. Primus shows reward the patient and the curious in equal measure. Claypool Gold, his newer project, plays the same venue on Thursday — check the Ticketmaster listing for the specific show time.
FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY, JUNE 26–28
Rush continues at Dickies Arena on Friday and Saturday nights, and each show is worth treating as its own event. The setlists have been rotating across the run, which means Friday’s show is not Tuesday’s show. If you’re a Rush fan and you only went once earlier in the week, Friday is the second ticket to buy.
The small rooms take over on the weekend. Granada Theater on Lower Greenville, The Kessler in Bishop Arts, Echo Lounge on Stemmons, and Club Dada and The Double Wide in Deep Ellum all run weekend lineups that don’t require advance planning — check their social accounts Friday morning and go where the music takes you. Sons of Hermann Hall on Elm Street in Deep Ellum runs live Texas swing and country most weekends, with a dance floor that is the actual point of the room. And AM/FM at 1950 Market Center Blvd in the Design District has a backyard stage with a full sound system that runs through the weekend — check @amfmlive for the specific lineup before you go.
Whatever you choose this week, Tuesday night is the one to plan around first. After that, Fort Worth has Rush for four more nights and the small rooms will sort themselves out. Dallas in late June is a good place to be with music on.
