Live Music Now

These are the 7 best concerts to catch in Houston this week

It's the best weekend of the year for classic rock, new age, and heavy metal fans, as huge tours roll through through town, including a special show at Minute Maid Park. But there are plenty of other great acts from various genres to catch across town in another busy week on the Houston music scene.

The Glitch Mob: headphone music for the dancefloor
The Glitch Mob gained fame at the height of the cloying EDM movement, but their roots are more in late-'90s experimental electronic music that at the time thrillingly combined synths, samples, and hip-hop beats more akin to Aphex Twin. This is arty dance music for those who simply like to let the layers wash over them or those who prefer to let it all hang out on the dancefloor.

The Glitch Mob play White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 S. Main St. on Thursday, June 14. Elohim opens. Tickets are $20 plus a $8.62 service fee. Doors open at 8 pm.

CultureMap Show of the Week: The Eagles
The Eagles always straddled the line of being a rock band and a rebel country act (see “Desperado” as proof), so it wasn’t a huge surprise when the massive classic rock group tapped country megastar Vince Gill to fill the spot of the late Glenn Frey for their latest stadium/ballpark tour that will stop at Minute Maid Park on June 15. Keeping in line with the rebel country thing, none other than Chris Stapleton will open, fresh off a RodeoHouston performance. This will be one of the biggest shows of the year for those of a certain age demographic.

The Eagles and Chris Stapleton are double-headers at Minute Maid Park, located at 501 Crawford St. on Friday, June 15. Tickets start at $99.50 plus service fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Post Malone blows up at Cynthia Woods
Want to know how huge Post Malone is right now? Simply try to purchase a ticket for his show at Cynthia Woods. Tickets are going for $129 for lawn seats, which is an astronomical amount to see anyone, anywhere. To put it in perspective, one could buy a one-day ticket to Day for Night to see over a dozen great acts for around that amount. But that's what an artist can charge when they are coming into town with the No. 1 song in the country with "Psycho," his second such song to earn that distinction. The other, "Rockstar," features opener, 21 Savage. Expect a duet between these two after shelling out the big bucks to sweat on the lawn.

Post Malone performs at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, located 2005 Lake Robbins Dr. in The Woodlands, on Friday, June 15. SOB X RBE, Paris, and 21 Savage opens. Tickets start at $129 for lawn and general admission, plus service fees. Gates open at 7 pm.

Emo-rockers flashback: The Get Up Kids
Emo-rock has seen a bit of a revival as bands that made it big off the punk-meets-heartbreak genre in the '90s are reuniting and hitting the road, perhaps none more visible than Dashboard Confessional. Count The Get Up Kids in that group. They are back behind a new EP, Kicker, which beefs up their sound while remaining faithful to their original vision.

The Get Up Kids hit White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 S. Main St. on Friday, June 15. Casket Lottery opens. Tickets are $19.99 in advance plus a $5.35 service fee. Doors open at 8 pm.

Houpalooza maybe brings tha hip-hop?
This one is a mystery. Originally set to be a three-day festival in Missouri City, the Houpalooza fest site now states it will be a one-day event at George R. Brown. Other than Flo Rida and a Tupac birthday tribute, the line-up is sketchy at best on the event's website. According to concert website, Pollstar.com, Nick Cannon and reggaeton star Yandel will be there. Emails to organizers for clarification were unreturned. Proceed with caution.

Houpalooza Music Festival with Flo Rida, Nick Cannon, Yandel and more will (hopefully) go down at George R. Brown Convention Center, located at 1001 Avenida De Las Americas, on Saturday, June 16. General admission tickets start at $50 plus service charges. Doors open at 4 pm.

Laurel, or, wait for it…
People love Yanni. Not anyone we know personally, but there are Yanni diehards out there, so much that the best tickets for his sold out show at the Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land this weekend are going for over $3000 in what could be seen as Houston's Twilight Zone version of the NBA Finals. Regardless of what you think about Yanni, the mega-selling, new age, synth wizard is a global superstar and has found himself back in the spotlight with the absurd Yanni/Laurel internet sound debate. He'll be celebrating the 25th anniversary of his live appearance at the Greek Acropolis, which rocketed him up the charts and converted millions into new age music fanatics. We are not making this up - the subsequent abum sold four million copies.

Yanni performs his masterwork Acropolis at Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land, located at 18111 Lexington Blvd., Sugar Land, on Saturday, June 16. Tickets start at $79 on the resale market. Show starts at 8 pm.

CultureMap recommends: Slayer's curtain call
It's a major study in contrast in Sugar Land this weekend as the Yanni crowds on Saturday will give way to metalheads on Sunday as Slayer comes to town on their final world tour. The legendary heavy metal act is bringing what might be the best line-up for anyone who has ever headbanged in leather and spikes with a who's-who of huge openers, including Anthrax.

Also: How awesome would it be if Slayer convinced Yanni to stick around for a duet? A music fan can only dream.

Slayer consumes the Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land, located at 18111 Lexington Blvd., Sugar Land on Sunday, June 17. Anthrax, Behemoth, Lamb of God, and Testament open. Tickets start at $70 on the resale market. Show starts at 5 pm.

Flo Rida will headline Houpalooza at George R. Brown Convention Center on Saturday, June 16.

Flo Rida/Facebook

Flo Rida will headline Houpalooza at George R. Brown Convention Center on Saturday, June 16.

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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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