Elvis, Selena, Sinatra, Nirvana: The Best State Fair of Texas Concerts of All Time

In the early '90s, the “greatest showman in country music” first hit his stride with a performance at the State Fair of Texas, performing country music as if he were a rock 'n' roll star. He moved like Elvis in a cowboy hat, inspiring pandemonium from the thousands who had descended on Fair Park to watch his performance. Panties — and probably more than a few speedos — would have been thrown on stage if it weren't for the tight Rocky Mountain and Wrangler jeans everyone was wearing.

Inspired by George Strait, Randy Travis and Keith Whitley, Garth Brooks was an Oklahoma boy who had found overnight success with “No Fences,” a 17-time platinum album that took country music to the top of the Billboard charts. He would sell more records than Elvis Presley, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll — 157 million units to Presley’s 137 million — and he nearly outsold the Beatles, who had 183 million units.

In 1991, Brooks had brought the largest crowd in recent memory to the State Fair of Texas. So many had arrived that they were parking in the neighborhoods around Fair Park, where the side hustle of “parking for $10,” followed by “I'll keep your car safe for $20” thrived.

Brooks would continue to draw massive crowds to worldwide arenas over the next decade. He brought pandemonium to AT&T stadium in July 2022.

“Brooks promised the audience that he, too, would hate it if he went to a concert and all he heard was the new stuff and went straight into his 1991 single ‘Rodeo.’ As rough as the start was, by the time it was ‘bulls and blood ... dust and mud,’ the greatest showman in country music had officially hit his stride,” David Fletcher reported for the Observer in late July 2022.

But Brooks wasn't the first artist or the last whose star was rising to draw thousands to the State Fair of Texas.

A few years later, Selena & the Dinos would appear on stage at the State Fair of Texas. It was a performance that Jason Hays, senior vice president of brand experience for the fair, told the Observer last week was “a landmark moment now written in the annals of our event history.” It was immortalized in a video posted to YouTube on Jan. 17, 2021, more than 25 years after her 1995 murder. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Selena’s Fair Park performance.

“We have a mix of upcoming talent and established talent,” Hays says in a follow-up interview. “We get this unique mix of seeing people before they become famous. It’s a really unique situation. We book them in December or January the year prior [to their performance], and they explode.”

The year 1956 could be considered the first time an artist exploded on stage at Fair Park, inspiring a legion of fans to descend on the State Fair of Texas for what would become a historic performance by Elvis Presley. It was captured in photos and old newspaper headlines from the Dallas Times Herald and The Dallas Morning News.

At that time, Hank Thompson & the Brazos Valley Boys had been bringing their honky-tonk Texas swing to crowds at the State Fair since the early 1950s. While they were well received, Thompson's performance wasn't one that preachers were calling “lustful” or creating pandemonium among thousands of screaming fans.

That’s what happened when Elvis appeared on the backseat of a convertible on the field of the Cotton Bowl. At nearly 26,000, it was the largest crowd for an entertainer in Dallas at the time. As the Morning News reported on Oct. 12, 1956, “A roar snowballed out of the grandstand as the car circled the gridiron, then grew to an earsplitting crescendo. When Elvis waved his hand, the roar increased.”

Elvis sang hits such as “Love Me Tender,” which the News reported had “brought forth joyful shrieks of ecstasy from the thousands of teenage fans.” It was a feat Frank Sinatra wasn’t able to accomplish in 1950 when he performed at the State Fair. Oak Cliff native Steve Bonner was only 13 when he watched Elvis’ performance at the State Fair. Bonner had been going with his family to the State Fair since early childhood and had seen Thompson & Brazos Valley Boys perform. They were regulars who would continue to perform at the fair until the mid-1960s, and they recorded a live album at the fair in 1962.

But no one had ever seen anything like the performance that Elvis unleashed.

“They had warm-up acts before he came out, but they were just a waste. All were there to see Elvis," Bonner recalls 68 years later. They were waiting for him to come down the south end of the stadium, where the players came out. When he finally came out, perched on the back of the convertible, you would not believe the response from the crowd. I’d never witnessed anything like that in my life.”

Bonner’s parents had left him alone as they went to do other things at the State Fair, and Bonner joined his friends for Elvis’ performance. He recalls that a fence had been put up to keep fans from getting down on the field to the stage where Elvis performed hits such as “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Heartbreak Hotel.” He closed out the show with Big Mama Thorton’s “Hound Dog” on the field in front of the stage.

“The fans were so loud. I couldn’t hardly hear him,” Bonner says. “I was sitting way up in the stands and had my field glasses.”

Since Elvis’ 1956 performance, several music legends have appeared onstage at the State Fair. Johnny Cash performed in 1975 at the Music Hall. Reba McEntire appeared in 1999, followed by Cristina Aguilera and Destiny’s Child in 2000 on the Chevrolet Main Stage. The Jonas Brothers played the main stage in 2007. Dallas’ own Demi Lovato, who was 16 at the time, would perform a year later, shortly before her first tour for her debut Don’t Forget, an album she co-wrote with the Jonas Brothers.

Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley launched her music career in the early 2000s, and performed at Fair Park in September 2003.

"I did it because it was just instinctive to do for me,” Presley told the Observer shortly before her performance at the State Fair. “I'm just a huge music lover. The more I'm out there and the more the fans are there and the more they tell me their stories and I see that I've touched people, that's why I do it. That's what feeds me at the end of a show — if I meet people and they tell me, you know, 'Your record got me through cancer or this ... or it changed that' or t'his lyric did that.' Then I am going, OK, this is why I am doing this, not for any other reason."

Artists such as Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert played the fair several times. Lambert performed six times between 2002 and 2009. Blondie performed at the fair in 2013.
In addition to the Chevrolet Main Stage, the fair's other stages include the Bud Light Stage in Cotton Bowl Plaza and the Yuengling Flight Stage. For the past six years, State Fair Records, an East Dallas label, has been working with the State Fair to book and support local (as well as regional and statewide) performers.

“They have done such a good job of booking and making sure it is diverse,” Hays says. “We’re not seeing talent like this at any other state fair.”

This year, from Sept. 27 until Oct. 20, about 30 local artists, including Dallas’ own Sarah Jaffe, will be performing on the Bud Light Stage, while 25 artists such as North Texas' classical pianist Miwha Choi and the Maylee Thomas Band, featuring McKinney Mayor George Fuller on guitar, will appear on the Yuengling Flight Stage.

Some of those performing have been part of the Artist in Residency program or know people who are part of it. Hays says the State Fair initiated the program a few years ago to spotlight local artists such as John Pedigo from The O’s and Matt Hillyer, who fronted Elven Hundred Springs for more than 20 years.

This year’s resident artist is Sylvia Garcia from Sabor Puro, a Dallas-based cumbia band. Garcia will be performing at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19, at the Chevrolet Main Stage.

“The Main Stage tends to broaden its scope outside of Texas with bigger acts, and that’s great because it needs to be bigger than life,” Pedigo says. “It’s also great that the other stages curate Texas artists. We have some of the best music in the world and the more it can be showcased, the better. It’s not particularly easy today with the venues in town. There are not a ton of options like there used to be.”

Pedigo calls the State Fair a “magical place, our own little Disney World with corny dogs.”

A longtime Dallas resident, Pedigo grew up, like many, as a regular attendee of the fair. He said the best show at Fair Park occurred in 1993 when Nirvana played to a crowd of under 6,000 people. Shonen Knife and The Breeders opened the show. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, however, didn’t offer a glowing review of the show: “The experience — unless you were in the mosh pit — was strangely static and distant, like watching a video of the band with the sound coming from down the hall.”

“That was by far the coolest thing, and the sound was atrocious,” Pedigo recalls. “I couldn’t believe a promoter could get Nirvana to show up there. Maybe they hated Ticketmaster. It was one of the last tours that Nirvana did.”

In 2013, Pedigo jammed with Kacey Musgraves on stage at Fair Park. She was only 18 at the time and not a massive star yet, though she would return to the fair as one in 2016.

“It was just kind of cool. You recognize an amazing talent,” Pedigo says. “The first note I heard her sing I knew it was going to be good. I was lucky to be there.”

Hays says that artists such as Musgraves, Nirvana and Garth Brooks are part of the “free live music with the price of admission” deal, which has been the State Fair’s model since at least 1989.

“We’ve really focused on diversifying our offerings on the stages,” Hays says. “We still have a lot of country and red dirt, but Dallas has changed. We see the opportunity through our live music. You only have to pay one price to have a great time.”

Dallas’ own Joshua Ray Walker will play at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 5 on the Chevrolet Main Stage. It will be his first year to appear on the main stage and one of his first shows back with his full band after he took time to address his health issues.

Like Bonner and Pedigo, Walker has attended the State Fair since early childhood. He checked with his mother, so he's certain that his first attendance at the fair was in the early ’90s when she was pregnant with him and attended Garth Brooks’ show.

Walker began performing at the fair in 2018, though he did miss last year. He was one of the Texas artists whom Hays had tapped to play the smaller stages to help showcase Texas or, more specifically, North Texas music.

Pedigo has worked with Walker on several projects and on Walker's three albums with State Fair Records.

As his music gained popularity, Walker says he had the opportunity to play the main stage a few years ago but decided to stick with the smaller stages due to the energy of the crowd, until this year.

“Promoting local artists represents Texas a lot better. You can walk around and see acts performing original music,” Walker says. “That is what the State Fair is about: showcasing what Texas has to offer.”