Today will begin the “Three Nights of Halloween” at Dave’s Dark Horse Tavern on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. There will be costume prizes all three nights: the Zombie Ball tonight, the Halloween Ball XVII on Saturday and Monday’s Hometown Halloween Bash.
For the Zombie Ball, dress zombie for discounts and for a chance to win prizes in different categories in the costume contest. Super Water Sympathy, an alternative band from Shreveport, La., will be kicking off the music for the weekend. According to the band’s Facebook page, the band formed in August 2010 and worked well from the very beginning. Now the band tours supporting its debut album, Vesper Belle. Super Water Sympathy will play at 10 p.m. tonight.
Saturday night will be the Tavern’s 17th Halloween Ball. The winners of this night’s prizes will be costumes that are the scariest, sassiest, most original, best couple or most comical. HogLeg rock ‘n’ roll band will be playing again this year with a surprise cover of a classic rock band.
HogLeg guitarist Lee Graham, also host of Singer Songwriter night at the Tavern, said the Halloween Ball is definitely one of the band’s favorite gigs of the year.
“Dark Horse Tavern has been the home base for this particular band,” said Graham. “(They) let us play every single Monday for a year. We cut our teeth on the Monday night groups. We’ve been playing up there for about 10 to 12 years now, just a time when we can jam out on our favorite songs.”
Now HogLeg gets together only a couple times out of the year, one of which is for the Halloween Ball. Every year the band likes to do a surprise cover.
“We’ve done this every year for quite some time. There’s a different theme every year; we do a lot of different material…” said Graham. “Last year it was Black Sabbath, the year before it was Talking Heads – ‘Stop Making Sense,’ and before that all the songs from ‘The Blues Brothers’ movie.”
 Since the set is kept a secret until performance, Graham could only share his opinion on the upcoming show.
 ”We’ve never played any of the songs by this artist that we’re playing a tribute to that night. It will sit nicely with the rest of the music we normally play. I think some people will be surprised,” Graham said.
Monday, the third night of Halloween at the Tavern, is Hometown Halloween Bash. This night is Singer Songwriter night. Passwords, specials and prizes will be given out on Twitter for the night.
Dave Hood, the Tavern’s owner, said Halloween is his favorite holiday, and he is ready to celebrate it at the Tavern.
“I guarantee a good time. It’s three nights of Halloween. Toss your inhibitions aside and let loose at the Tavern,” he said.
Sarah Lamb, master’s landscape architecture major, third year Tavern Halloween veteran and manager at the Tavern, said the weekend for a Tavern worker can get hectic, but the experience, overall, is fun.
“The fun thing about Halloween here at the Tavern has a lot to do with the staff, I think because we really get into it,” she said. “As a group we all decorate together. We all plan our costumes together. We all get here before the patrons come in for the night. We usually like to have the staff here early so we have time to take pictures, to kind of goof off and get ready so spirits are high and everybody is in a good mood. It really makes the night because we know it’s going to get crazy, busy and stressful at points. So we just start the whole holiday off ready to rock it.”
Lamb said everyone should bring dancing shoes and be ready to have a good time because it gets wild.
“I don’t know what the best part is … The whole weekend is fun here,” Lamb said.