Live Music Now

These are the top 5 concerts in Houston this week

Spring is here, meaning it's a great time to be outside, enjoying the sun, suds, and music before the hellacious time that is summer in the Bayou City arrives.

This week sees the return of one of the city's best outdoor music series (see below) in addition to the regular round-up of touring acts worthy of your time. May we suggest checking out one of our Top 10 best restaurants of the year before a show?

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

CultureMap recommends: Guster
If Guster came around 10 years later than their '90s heyday, they'd be stars. Their mix of quirky acoustic folk, hooky licks, and widescreen grandeur (see "Amsterdam" and "Do You Love Me") drew from many of the best acts at the time, but they were unfortunately relegated to cult status. But this Massachusetts band never really went anywhere and continued to pump out good-to-decent albums, playing acclaimed live sets. If you want to see and hear what the better side of the late-'90s to early-aughts alternative music was like, make plans to be at this show. The band is touring behind its 2019 release, Look Alive.

Guster at Heights Theatre, located at 339 W. 19th St., on Wednesday, March 27. Saintseneca opens. Tickets start at $32.50 plus a $7 service fee. Doors open at 7 pm.

CultureMap free show alert: Party on the Plaza
The best free party of the year, Party on the Plaza, returns downtown to the Avenida Houston grounds. Latin Night is the flavor for the kick-off week of this seasonal event, headlined by Los Angeles Mexican-American band, La Santa Cecilia, joined by local Selena cover band, Siempre Selena. Other themes throughout this season include Art Car Parade Sneak Peek (April 11), Jazz Appreciation Night (April 25), and Asian Pacific American Heritage Night (May 23).

La Santa Cecilia and Siempre Selena perform at Party on the Plaza at Avenida Houston, located at 1001 Avenida de las Americas, on Thursday, March 28. Admission is free. Show starts at 6 pm.

Mike Doughty plays Soul Coughing
God bless, Soul Coughing. A band definitely of its coffeehouse and baggy jeans era when it received major airplay on '90s alternative and college radio, the group simply couldn't change with the times when guitars and synths became darker, edgier, and more experimental. But make no mistake, Soul Coughing was a great, underrated band, taking elements of hip-hop, slam poetry, and funk to produce some of the most unique songs found left-of-dial. Mike Doughty, the band's lead singer, has been touring these songs and will perform the critically acclaimed Soul Coughing 1994 debut, Ruby Vroom, in full.

Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing is at White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 N. Main St., on Friday, March 29. Wheatus opens. Tickets start at $22 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Hozier at Revention
The "Take Me to Church" Irish singer Hozier is back with the similarly dark and echo-effected Wasteland, Baby! following his world-beating debut single and subsequent self-titled 2014 album. While the new album doesn't capture the zeitgeist much like that monster tune, it hasn't stopped this show from selling out, with ticket prices reaching over $100 on the resale market. Only spiritual devotees to the pop star need shell out that kind of money.

Hozier performs at Revention Music Center, located at 520 Texas Ave., on Saturday, March 30. Jade Bird opens. Tickets start at $102 via the resale market plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

The Beach Boys in Sugar Land
Purists will say it's not the original Beach Boys — Brian Wilson rarely performs with his former bandmates — but those who love the sound of the '60s, surf rock, and memories of fun in the sun, will be out in force for this family-friendly event. It's hard not to love a group that produced some of the best songs of all time in "Good Vibrations," "I Get Around," and "California Girls."

The Beach Boys are at Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land, located at 18111 Lexington Blvd. in Sugar Land, on Saturday, March 30. Tickets start at $59.50 plus fees. Doors open at 7:30 pm.

La Santa Cecilia headline the kick-off date for the fourth annual Party on the Plaza this Thursday, March 27.

Courtesy Party on the Plaza

La Santa Cecilia headline the kick-off date for the fourth annual Party on the Plaza this Thursday, March 27.

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Movie Review

Billie Eilish takes fans behind the scenes in immersive 3D tour film

Photo by Henry Hwu/courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Billie Eilish in Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D.

In 2021, at the tender age of 19, singer Billie Eilish was already the subject of a documentary, The World’s a Little Blurry. At that point, she had only released one album, so the film threatened to feel too early for such treatment. The ensuing five years have only made her a bigger star, though, so in many ways that movie now feels prescient for the person on display in the new concert documentary with the unwieldy title of Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D.

Directed by Eilish and blockbuster filmmaker James Cameron, the film takes viewers inside Eilish’s 2024-2025 tour in support of her latest album, 2023’s Hit Me Hard and Soft. Filmed mostly at her series of shows in Manchester, England, the movie is a showcase for Eilish’s music, but it also serves as a smaller exploration of the type of person she is, as well as the impact she has had on her legion of fans.

The draw of the film is the use of Cameron’s beloved 3D technology, which he has employed in each of the three Avatar films. Unlike in those films, where the 3D has the odd effect of making the visuals too realistic for their own good, the technique brings an intimacy to the large-scale show that underscores the unique bond the singer has with her supporters.

Eilish and Cameron go back and forth between performances at the concert to behind-the-scenes sequences, detailing the enormous effort it takes to put on a show like that and how Eilish spends her time getting ready for it. As in The World’s a Little Blurry, this film continues to portray the singer as down-to-Earth, someone who yearns to maintain the connection to her fans that she’s had since she released her first single, “Ocean Eyes,” 10 years ago.

And as the many emotional songs in Eilish’s concert playlist prove, the feeling from the crowd is mutual. While Eilish has multiple bangers like “Bad Guy,” “Therefore I Am,” and the Charli XCX collaboration “Guess,” it’s the sad songs like “Everything I Wanted,” “Happier Than Ever,” and the Oscar-winning Barbie anthem, “What Was I Made For?” that hit the hardest. The depth of feeling emanating from her many sobbing fans singing along to crushing songs cannot be understated.

For audiences of the film, though, it’s the breadth of camera angles and shot choices that make it truly dynamic. There are cameras everywhere, including in the crowd, inside a cube at the center of the stage that rises and descends, following Eilish as she traipses every inch of the long, rectangular stage, and even a small one Eilish uses to bring an extra personal touch to the in-arena screen. Combined, they capture the complete energy of the concert, something that is not always the case in a film of this type.

Eilish has almost as many movies — two — as she does albums — three — which borders on overkill for a singer of her age. But both her music and the movies show her to be a person who knows the responsibility of being a celebrity, someone who understands that her fans are the reason she’s famous at all. Her career may go up or down from here, but it’s clear she’s already made a huge impact on those who love her most.

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Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D opens in theaters on May 8.

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