Live Music Now

Here are the 7 best concerts in Houston this week

We called last week the official kick-off of the spring music season, and this week only goes to back that assessment up with a dozen great shows throughout the city.

It also marks the return of Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion to big concert shows, meaning it's prime time to take in an outdoor show before the heat and humidity return to the Houston area.

No matter what show (or shows) you pick, you can't go wrong, with the concert calendar looking like a mighty fine festival lineup. (If only we still had one of those in Houston in the spring.)

CultureMap's biggest, best, and most notable shows of the week are as follows:

Shovels & Rope at HOB
Fans of the singer-songwriter genre will want to turn up to the House of Blues this Tuesday. South Carolina duo Shovels and Rope have one of the best albums of the year in By Blood, incorporating country, bluegrass, blues, and indie rock into a beautiful mix incorporating rock textures. This is a band to watch. They'll be joined by the acclaimed folk rocker Frank Turner, whose political incisiveness and strong sense of melody liken him to a Billy Bragg (even if they don't share the same views).

Shovels & Rope is at House of Blues, located at 1204 Caroline St., on Tuesday, April 23. Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, Indianola open. Tickets start at $30 plus fees. House of Blues is currently running a buy one, get one free deal, so take a friend. Doors open at 7 pm.

CultureMap Show of the Week: Snoop Dogg
Fo' shizzle, this show is going to be hype, as Snoop Dogg celebrates 25 years of the seminal West Coast rap album Doggystyle. That album, buoyed by Dr. Dre's production, spawned the hits "Gin and Juice," "Murder Was the Case," and "Doggy Dog World," all of which would make Snoop Dogg a superstar.

In that quarter-century, Snoop has become one of rap's most visible hitmakers, his stoned drawl carrying countless hits and TV shows with convicted felon chefs. This tour features his entourage of E-40, Too Short, DJ Quick, and more. The Smart Financial Centre is about to get hazy, y'all.

Snoop Dogg is at Smart Financial Centre, located at 18111 Lexington Blvd. in Sugar Land, on Thursday, April 25. Tickets start at $39.50 plus fees. Show starts at 8 pm.

10,000 Maniacs at Heights Theater
While this may not be the band fronted by the great Natalie Merchant, it is the same band that wrote tons of hits in the '90s that captured the attention of millions. The band soldiered on after Merchant went solo in 1993, now joined by Mary Ramsey. Their last studio release is 2015's Twice Told Tales, but they have been touring in support of two live albums, so expect to hear many of those greatest hits such as "These Are Days," "Trouble Me," and "Because the Night."

10,000 Maniacs headline the Heights Theater, located at 339 W 19th St., on Thursday, April 25. Nathan Quick opens. Tickets are $30 plus a $7 service charge. Doors open at 7 pm.

CultureMap Recommends, Part 1: Leon Bridges
Make no misktake, Leon Bridges is really good at what he does. Bridges faced some unwarranted blowback when RodeoHouston booked him to perform on Black Heritage Day in 2018. Critics said he wasn't relevant enough, that his music spoke more to white audiences more than African Americans.

What those critics didn't take into account is how great Bridges' output is. Last year's Good Thing masters his '60s retro sound and ups the pop factor, perfecting his sound. It's made him a star with him appearing in ads for Gap and Sonos. The first big show of the season at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion will be a doozy.

Leon Bridges is at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, located at 2005 Lake Robbins Dr. in The Woodlands, on Friday, April 26. Jess Glynne opens. Tickets start at $29.50 plus fees. Gates open at 6:30 pm.

CultureMap recommends, Part 2: Chvrches
Very few bands in the world make better synth-pop than the Scottish trio Chvrches (pronounced Churches). Fronted by the charismatically bold Lauren Mayberry, Chvrches bursted into the consciousness of music fans worldwide with the excellent debut The Bones of What You Believe, full of heartfelt synth lines, and Mayberry's romantic lyrics that immediately felt timeless.

Their latest, Love is Dead, veers toward pop more than any of their previous work, but manages to reach the heights of the band's greatest work. Another strong female voice will open for them in the form of Los Angeles band Cherry Glazzer and its frontwoman, Clementine Creevy, which just released one of the best albums of 2019 in Stuffed and Ready.

Chvrches play at White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 N. Main St., on Friday, April 26. Cherry Glazzer open. Tickets start at $34 plus fees. Gates open at 6 pm.

Liz Phair at Heights Theater
One of the icons of alternative music, Liz Phair, broke down the gates of the boys club that was the grunge era when she released the 1993 masterpiece Exile in Guyville, an unabashedly sexual and confrontational work that paved the way for many successful female performers today. While her output following that high watermark has been spotty, Phair still commands attention on the live stage, and seeing her at the intimate Heights Theater is a must-see for any '90s alt-rock fan.

Liz Phair is at the Heights Theater, located at 339 W 19th St., on Saturday, April 27. Tickets are $32 plus a $7 service charge. Doors open at 7 pm.

Erykah Badu at Arena Theatre
The artistic queen of hip-hop, soul, and R&B, Erykah Badu, returns to Houston to give us a helping of creative beauty. Badu hasn't put out much since 2010's New Amerykah, Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh, but that doesn't mean to sleep on this show.

One of the most creative performers of our times, commands our attention and delivers on many levels, with hits stretching all the way back to 1997's Baduizm. She's informed many of the biggest acts today in terms of her influential vision. You know when Outkast's Andre 3000 sings to Ms. Jackson "Me and your daughter got a special thing going on?" in the song of the same name? That's about Badu.

Erykah Badu is at Arena Theatre, located at 7326 Southwest Fwy., on Saturday, April 27. Tickets start at $99.50 plus fees. Show starts at 8:30 pm.

Chvrches heads a killer line-up at White Oak Music Hall on Friday, April 26.

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Photo by Daniel Cavazos

Chvrches heads a killer line-up at White Oak Music Hall on Friday, April 26.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 doesn't match the first movie's enthusiasm

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2.

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films like M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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