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    One hell of a show

    Living the dream: Eli Young Band emphasizes Texas roots in rousing RodeoHoustonconcert

    Anna Domning
    Mar 6, 2012 | 6:47 am
    • James Young (left), Mike Eli (center) and Chris Thompson (right) play theirhearts out at RodeoHouston Monday night.
      Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchLightGroup.com
    • The Eli Young Band was living a dream at RodeoHouston.
      Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchLightGroup.com
    • Lead guitarist James Young.
      Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchLightGroup.com
    • Lead singer, and Tomball native, Mike Eli was all smiles on Monday night.
      Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchLightGroup.com
    • The Eli Young Band
      Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchLightGroup.com

    Living your dreams seemed to be the theme of the night, and for the four members of the Eli Young Band, that is exactly what they were doing live on the RodeoHouston stage Monday evening. After a long prelude, they got the party started with “Always the Love Songs” from their 2008 album Jet Black and Jealous. Lead singer Mike Eli, born and raised a mere 35 miles down the road in Tomball, led the rest of his band with an entertaining set list comprised of both new tunes and old favorites.

    Next up was another Jet Black and Jealous hit called “Radio Waves,” which immediately had the guests in the floor seats up and two-steppin’ around the stadium.

    “I grew up in these parts and always dreamed about playing RodeoHouston as a kid. (Performing here) is absolutely positively a dream come true,” Eli said just before playing “Even if it Breaks Your Heart.”

    “I grew up in these parts and always dreamed about playing RodeoHouston as a kid. (Performing here) is absolutely positively a dream come true,” Eli said just before playing “Even if it Breaks Your Heart” the second single off their new album Life at Best.

    He emphasized how much hard work and struggle the band has been through to make their dreams a reality, and encouraged any wannabe musicians in the audience to stick it out until they could make it happen too.

    The Band slowed it down a bit with a little love song called “Say Goodnight” and then launched into the song that made them famous, “When It Rains,” as the crowd sang along to every word. Eli seemed to hit his stride when the familiar hit began and started running around the stage oozing confidence.

    Although Eli is the voice of the band, lead guitarist James Young is the heart and soul. He stole the show with his guitar playing and insane mop of curly hair that he whipped around with every riff. On the title track of Jet Black and Jealous, Young rocked the guitar while simultaneously playing the harmonica and you couldn’t help but ignore the other members on the stage.

    They went way back to one of their early singles with “Oklahoma Girl” off of their 2005 album Level about a young Texas boy who falls in love with an Okie. Then came “Skeletons” and crowd favorite “Guinevere.” Eli reminisced about how the first shows he ever went to were when the rodeo was in the Astrodome, and every show afterwards that wasn’t on a giant rotating stage in an arena was a big disappointment. He gave a shout out to Tomball, Conroe and Humble before launching into “Small Town Kid.”

    A highlight of the night was when the band performed a cover of my all-time favorite Skynard song, “Gimme Three Steps,” which they contributed to the Lynard Skynard tribute CD Sweet Home Alabama in 2010. Eli and Young jumped off the stage and ran around hugging and greeting fans as they performed. They closed out the show with their first No. 1 hit song “Crazy Girl” off their new album, and had everyone up on their feet dancing and clapping along.

    Now I must admit that after seeing Alabama and Lady Antebellum perform earlier this week, the bar was set very high. The Eli Young Band has come a long way since I first saw them years ago in a little honky-tonk, performing for a room full of screaming high school girls. Reliant wasn’t nearly full, but for four guys from the University of North Texas in Denton, the Eli Young Band put on one hell of a show.

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    series/lets-go-rodeo-2012

    Movie Review

    New Pixar film Elio is fun but falls short of Disney's top tier

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 19, 2025 | 6:00 pm
    Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio
    Photo courtesy of Pixar
    Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio.

    Pixar has done a ton of different things in the 28 feature films they’ve released over the past 30 years, but the one they’d never done is deal with aliens (and, no, the alien toys in Toy Story don’t count). Now they’re going where many storytellers have gone before, but in their own unique way, in the new film Elio.

    Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is a space fanatic who has recently lost both of his parents in an unnamed event. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) is now his guardian, and because she happens to be a member of the U.S. Space Force, Elio finds himself tantalizingly close to communications from space. With a desire to be abducted by aliens for both curiosity and sentimental reasons, Elio sends a message into space, hoping for some kind of response.

    He gets that and more when a ship full of multiple types of beings takes him into space, believing him to be a leader instead of a child. An encounter with a hostile force led by Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) gives Elio both a new friend, Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and responsibility for maintaining peace during an unexpected galactic crisis.

    Pixar has not typically followed the route of many Disney movies of giving their child protagonist the trauma of dead parents, and doing so here is the first of a few minor missteps. Having Olga be his mom instead of his aunt would have altered their dynamic, but only slightly. While Elio is shown to miss his parents, his major focus is on making contact with aliens. Since the film only briefly deals with his grief, it would have been better served by excising it altogether.

    For the most part, the film is goofy, with Elio’s enthusiasm for aliens matched by the oddness of the creatures he meets in space. The filmmakers - there are three credited directors and three credited writers - seem to have taken inspiration from sea creatures and Pixar’s own history, as the main bad guy emulates Mike and Sully’s boss from Monsters, Inc. Almost every character in the film is heightened to a degree that makes for funny situations, but not as much sentimentality as other Pixar offerings.

    Surprisingly, especially since the film ends with a voiceover from notable astronomer Carl Sagan, the filmmakers play fast and loose with real-life science. Elio’s journeys to and from the alien spaceship are treated as close-to-instantaneous trips, even involving portals directly to Earth. The idea of the story doesn’t allow them to delve into things like relativistic time dilation, but there still could have been other scientific references to keep the story aboveboard.

    There are very few stars to be found among the film’s voice cast other than Saldaña and Garrett, who are each fine if unmemorable. Kibreab and Edgerly are given many more scenes than anyone else, and they each do a great job of bringing out both the joy and naivete of their characters. Some lesser-known actors like Jameela Jamil, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Brendan Hunt show up in minor roles, but they don’t stand out in any way.

    The story and characters in Elio are sweet and fun, but the film as a whole falls well short of the top tier Pixar movies. The filmmakers could have gone many different directions with a story about a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens, and the way they chose ended up being innocuous and less than compelling.

    ---

    Elio opens in theaters on June 20.

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