Dogs Days of Summer Tour without Soul Asylum

August 18, 2022

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The Nixons TT Theater Will Crews Photography (2) — The Nixons TT Theater

Dog Days of Summer Tour 2022

August 12^th 2022

By Will Crews

We arrived at Texas Trust CU Theater in Grand Prairie, Texas to see a really nice concert including six bands in total Spin Doctor, Soul Asylum, Sister Hazel, Sponge, Deep Blue Something, and The Nixon’s.

All really goods bands with some great tunes and most of the headliners playing for 20 years or more with a great collection of music under their belts. Scheduled to be a full night. A tweet from Soul Asylum around 5:28 PM the night of the show said, “Due to a Covid issue within the Soul Asylum camp, we are sadly unable to play tonight’s show in Grand Prairie.” They apologized for the late notice and said, “we will be back soon.”. Which was a bummer personally and I am sure others. The show went on and I believe each of the bands extended their sets to fill the time, so the values of the tickets were still there. Unless you only came to this concert to hear Soul Asylum as in my case. I will say we were entertained by some good rock n roll.

The Nixon’s with Zac Maloy still wearing a wrap on his left wrist from an 8’ fall into a pit at one of their previous shows that broke a finger. He introduced Jude Dillon playing guitar covering for him. He said they had warned him about the height and he stumbled and fell in anyway. He said that it was healing up pretty well but was still limited. He did play guitar on a couple of tunes but carried the mic most of the time on the stage. Jesse Davis on guitar, Ricky Brooks, and John Humphrey putting out music since the early 90’s took the stage promptly at 6:00 high energy tight set playing hits such as “Head”, “Leave”, “Kaleidoscope”, “Foma”, “Baton Rouge”, “Sister”, “Rocket Man (Elton John cover)”, “Happy Song”, and finished with “One by One”. They seem to be having a great time being on stage and performing to a live audience.

Up next was Sponge led by the only original member Vinnie Dombroski, as the band has grown over the years. Starting out in Detroit best known for their 1994 hit “Plowed”, their 1995 hit “Molly (16 Candles Down the Drain)”, and their 1996 hit “Wax Ecstatic (To Sell Angelina) according to Wiki. Played “Rotting Piñata”, “Neenah Menasha”, “Got to be A Bore”, “Stitch” and others.

Some local boys from Denton that hit the stage next is Deep Blue Something another band I had not heard of outright but as most folks I’m sure you have heard their hit single, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” but I will tell you they lit the stage up with awesome interaction asking the people “How is security here?” Todd Pipes joked.” Can ya’ll come on down and get a little closer to the stage. Lots of room down here in front of the stage…. Let’s make this a little cozier. I’m just kidding, no riots.” Or something to that effect. He had the fans rolling. He called one lady out for wearing a Deep Blue Something Shirt. Also playing “Burning a Past”, “Park bench”, “Halo”, “7 A.M”, “Hide”, “Don’t Change”, and others.

Deep Blue Something Texas Trust CU Theater Will Crews Photography — Deep Blue Something

The fourth band up was Sister Hazel. Another Alt band from the mid 90’s with hits like “All for You. Band members and energetic front man Ken Block with Jett Beres, Andrew Copeland, Ryan Newell, Mark Trojanowski. Playing “Change Your Mind, Shame”, “That Kind of Beautiful”, “Follow the River”, “Champagne High”, “Happy”, “All for You”, and of course “American Girl (Tom Petty cover)” From start to finish these guys lite up the stage.

Sister Hazel Texas Trust CU Theater Will Crews Photography — Sister Hazel

Not being a big Twitter fan we still at this time had no idea that Soul Asylum wouldn’t be playing and a little surprised when Spin Doctor came out. Early 90’s band that had a couple of hits “Two Princes” and “Little Miss Cant be Wrong.” Fronted by Chris Barron, Aaron Comess on drums and the amazing Eric Schenkman on guitar and Mark White on Bass. Playing “Rock and Roll Heaven”, “What Time Is It?”, “Nice Talking to Me”, “Off My Line”, “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong”, “Boom Box”, “Margarita”, “The Buddha on the Lawn”, “How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me?)”, “Sugar”, “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues”, “’Bout a Train”, “Still a Gorilla”, and of course “Two Princes”.