Live Music Now

These are the 7 best shows to see in Houston this week

The first half of the next week in live music is a relatively calm one, as if the city is bracing for the storm that is the greatest show on dirt: RodeoHouston.

Three weeks of nightly concerts will feature the best that country music has to offer with the sprinkling of pop, soul and Latin acts thrown in for good measure. Add a brand new, state-of-the-art Stars Over Texas stage with double the lights and the best sound system money can buy and you get one of the most sought after events of the year in this fine city, attracting a few million attendees with an affection for tight denim jeans and leather boots.

The party kicks off with the inarguably the biggest country star ever, Garth Brooks, who will christen the star-shaped stage on Tuesday, February 27. He’ll also close out RodeoHouston on Sunday, March 18. With no new album to promote, expect Brooks to bring the hits hard and heavy. Because you haven’t lived until you've sung "Friends In Low Places" with 75,000 country fans.

Homewood, Alabama’s finest C&W band, Little Big Town, will bring their two dozen country hits to the Stars Over Texas stage on Wednesday night. Not to be outdone, The Voice judge and Gwen Stefani fiancé Blake Shelton, will trot out his collection of No. 1 hits – 17 consecutive, which is just insane – on Thursday, March 1.

Rodeo Houston starts Tuesday, February 27 and runs through March 18 at NRG Stadium, 1 NRG Parkway. Tickets are available on the RodeoHouston website and resale market. All three shows start at 6:45 pm, but get there early for some Rodeo action.

Best blues show of the week
Beth Hart made a name for herself in the late-’90s, early-2000s with a pair of excellent pop albums, 1999’s Screaming for My Supper and 2003’s Leave the Light On, even touching the cultural zeitgeist by appearing on an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, where she performed "LA Song (Out of this Town)," a piano-ballad that fit next to the Vanessa Carlton and Michelle Branch types of that time.

But her secret weapon last has extended her career is her powerful, smoky vocals that she paired with blues guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa (who opened for B.B. King when he was 12 years-old), scoring them both a Grammy nomination in their time together. Simply put, Hart can wail up a storm and Bonamassa’s dirty licks are some of the best you’ll hear this side of the Mississippi Delta. The two together are simply magic. Their latest, the recently released Black Coffee, may be their best album yet.

Beth Hart performs vocal acrobatics at the House of Blues, 1204 Caroline St., Saturday, February 24. Tickets start at $31 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Best example of solo, eclectic indie-folk
Fans of Pitchfork flavored folk-rock will get a thrill out of seeing two revered cult acts performing together. Vetiver lead singer Andy Cabic and Fruit Bats Eric D. Johnson will each play a solo set at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, stripped down versions of their whimsical and melodic indie-folk that brought them both notoriety in the mid-2000s. Vetiver is the stranger of the two (see 2004’s self-titled debut), while Fruit Bats make more traditional indie as on 2016’s great Absolute Loser. Both have direct influences on each other as Johnson spent some time playing in Cabic’s band. This will be a fun, unique show.

Vetiver and Fruit Bats bring the eclectic folk to McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, 2425 Norfolk St., Saturday, February 24. Tickets start at $20. The show starts at 7 pm.

Best chance to hear the Sia second coming
Fans of Sia will love Ella Vos. The Los Angeles-based chanteuse creates atmospheric, intimate songs of longing and heartache that feature just enough bouncy syncopation to make it a head nodding delight. Find out why Rolling Stone named her an artist to watch as she brings songs from her worthy 2017 offering, Words I Never Said, to Warehouse Live.

The enchanting Ella Vos performs at Warehouse Live Studio, located at 813 St. Emanuel Street, Sunday, February 25. Sharaya Summers opens. Tickets are $15 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Best chance to hear that one song on the radio
Remember Stabbing Westward? The band that made a small dent in the late-’90s by aping Depeche Mode synth and Nine Inch Nails angst? AWOLNATION is sort of like that, but for today’s rock radio — interesting enough to not change the channel, but not quite great enough to download the album. But hey, if you’re into that sort of thing, the Nothing But Thieves tour could be something to see. Just don’t tell me “Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)” isn’t a total rip-off of the 1997 Savage Garden hit “I Want You.”

AWOLNATION sails into the Revention Music Center, 520 Texas St., Thursday, March 1. Nothing But Thieves opens. Tickets start at $25. Doors open at 7 pm.

Vetiver lead singer Andy Cabic (center) will play a solo set with Fruit Bats lead singer Eric D. Johnson at McGonigel's Mucky Duck this Saturday, February 22.

nightlife music rodeo concerts

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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