Beats Meet Broncos

Rave on: The Chainsmokers turn RodeoHouston into world's largest nightclub with an electro beat

A middle-aged man stood outside NRG Stadium, dressed in the traditional garb worn by the majority at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Sunday evening: a patterned button down shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots.

But his hat revealed that this wasn't an ordinary night. It read, "Make America Rave Again," a cheeky allusion to the show 74,280 people had just witnessed thanks to the electronic dance music DJ duo, The Chainsmokers.

Thanks to an early start time on a Sunday, many families touting sons and daughters familiar with the Top 40 radio hits of Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall stuck around to check out the first EDM act to play RodeoHouston. The hour-long set turned NRG Stadium into the world's largest nightclub with big electro beats, pyrotechnics and fireworks, fog machines, and a trippy laser and light show. It immediately followed bull riding and mutton bustin'.

At first, it didn't seem as though the combo of cowboys and dancefloor bangers would mix, as the duo came out to stage with a bare table of four CDJs and a single microphone, not a single stringed instrument in sight. Taggart did sing vocal hooks on a handful of songs, but the setlist was comprised entirely of prerecorded selections, many just snippets mixed into one another.

Taggart even alluded to his strange surroundings at one point. "I know the expression is this isn't your first rodeo, but this really is our first rodeo," he said. "I don't think I've ever seen dance music in a situation like this."

But if a DJ's job is to get people moving, then The Chainsmokers succeeded by mastering the first rule of the craft — know your audience. The setlist not only included their biggest songs (No. 1 single "Closer," top 10 singles "Paris," "Don't Let Me Down," "Something Just Like This" and "Roses"), but a mishmash of songs familiar to everyone including "Rock And Roll All Nite" by Kiss, "Gonna Fly Now" from the film Rocky and "Under The Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They were obviously playing to the youngest in attendance by including tunes from emo rock (Panic! At the Disco), punk pop (Blink 182) and hip-hop (T.I., DJ Khaled).

While it may have left a segment of country diehards scratching their heads underneath their cowboy hats, the performance that amounted to two self-admitted party bros dancing on on a table and twiddling knobs was better received than anyone anticipated. The go-for-broke, expertly-choreographed visuals helped sell the entire package.

"Make some noise if this is your first rave," Taggart directed the crowd. And make noise they did, attendees turning NRG Stadium into a dance party, with a surprising amount singing along to many of the songs in the wide-ranging set.

Once one got over how weird it was to see two guys throwing down massive beats in the middle of a dirt pile, it was a lot of fun. Taggart and Pall were well aware of the irony of it all, at one point dropping the theme of Disney's The Lion King, with the former snickering that he couldn't believe he had just played it at a rodeo.

RodeoHouston deserves credit for thinking outside the box with its programming, knowing full well that families would be out on a Sunday to take in the sights. It was an ingenious way to keep butts in seats, or in the case of Sunday's performance, wiggling in the aisles.

Electric Daisy Carnival, eat your heart out.

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Setlist Note: Artists at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo generally have a setlist made available to media. The Chainsmokers did not, so this list was compiled thanks to good old Shazam. Songs that were not found or known are marked as such.

“Paris (Remix),” The Chainsmokers
“Don’t Let Me Down (Remix),” The Chainsmokers
“Inside Out (Remix),” The Chainsmokers
Unknown track
“Feel Your Love,” Flux Pavilion & NGHTMRE feat. Jamie Lewis
“Follow (Zomboy Remix),” Bro Safari
“Until You Were Gone (Skruz & Saturn Remix),” The Chainsmokers feat. Emily Warren
“Let ‘Em Know,” Datsik feat. Armanni Reign
“Rock and Roll All Nite (Remix),” Kiss
“Weaponize,” Pegboard Nerds & MIU
“What You Know,” T.I.
“Thief,” Ookay
“All We Know,” The Chainsmokers
“Gonna Fly Now (Rocky Theme) Remix,” Bill Conti
“Pop Dat,” 4b & Aazar
“Sweet Nothing,” Calvin Harris feat. Florence Welch
“Cinema,” Benny Benassi X Skrillex feat. Gary Go
“Kanye,” The Chainsmokers feat. SirenXX
“I’m God,” Clams Casino
“All I Do Is Win,” DJ Khaled
“Split (Only U),” Tiesto & The Chainsmokers
“Show Me,” Tiesto & DallasK
“Can’t Get Enough,” Lookas
“Under The Bridge,” Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Roses,” The Chainsmokers feat. ROZES
“Setting Fires,” The Chainsmokers
“Paris,” The Chainsmokers
“Paris (Pegboard Nerds Remix),” The Chainsmokers
“What’s My Age Again,” Blink 182
“Wylin, Part 2,” Cesqueaux
“Tremor (Sensation 2014 Anthem),” Dimitri Vegas & Martin Garrix & Like Mike
“Bang,” WAVEDASH
“Closer,” The Chainsmokers feat. Halsey
“Closer (Wuki Remix),” The Chainsmokers feat. Halsey
“I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” Panic! At The Disco
“Ride,” Twenty One Pilots
Unknown track
“Something Just Like This,” The Chainsmokers & Coldplay
“King of Africa (The Lion King theme),” Douser
Unknown track
“Boozy,” Stoltenhoff
“Yellow (Remix),” Coldplay
“Don’t Let Me Down,” The Chainsmokers feat. Daya

The Chainsmokers put on a hell of a dance party at RodeoHouston.

The Chainsmokers Houston Rodeo 2017 stage

Photo by Michelle Watson/CatchLight Group

The Chainsmokers put on a hell of a dance party at RodeoHouston.

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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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