Concert News

With new album, newly shorn The Weeknd returns to Houston on world concert tour

The Weeknd, who will perform in Houston in May 2017, now comes with 50 percent less hair.

Photo courtesy of LiveNation

Vowel-challenged musical artist The Weeknd has locked in his first-ever world tour, called Starboy: Legend of the Fall 2017 World Tour, for early 2017, with two Texas dates on the itinerary.

The tour will hit Dallas on May 4 at American Airlines Center, and Houston on May 6 at the Toyota Center.

The tour spans Europe and North America, with phase one kicking off on February 17 in Stockholm. It will visit 14 additional cities across Europe including Paris, London, Amsterdam, Zurich, Copenhagen, and more before heading to North America on April 25 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The North American leg of the tour will hit 25 cities across the United States and Canada. The tour supports the The Weeknd's new album, Starboy, due out November 25 on XO/Republic Records.

Known for his bewitching hair, The Weeknd first broke into the music scene with the 2011 mixtape House of Balloons, followed by studio album Kiss Land in 2013 and the widely recognized Beauty Behind the Madness that earned him two Grammy Awards in 2015. Starboy is The Weeknd’s fourth full-length album with a title track featuring Daft Punk.

Last month the singer canceled an appearance in Austin during the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix weekend, saying that with an album due out next month, he felt he had to use every spare minute of the coming weeks to complete it. He was replaced by Usher and The Roots.

His last Houston appearance was in December, when he performed to a sold-out crowd at the Toyota Center.

Tickets for both the North American and European dates go on sale November 4 at ticketmaster.com. All dates, cities, and venues below subject to change.

February 17, 2017 Stockholm / The Globe
February 19, 2017 Oslo, Norway / Spektrum
February 20, 2017 Copenhagen, Denmark / Royal Arena
February 24, 2017 Amsterdam / Ziggo Dome
February 26, 2017 Zurich / Hallenstadion
February 28, 2017 Paris / AccorHotels Arena
March 2, 2017 Cologne, Germany / Lanxess Arena
March 3, 2017 Antwerp, Belgium / Sportpaleis
March 5, 2017 Manchester, United Kingdom / Manchester Arena
March 7, 2017 London / O2 Arena
March 8, 2017 London / O2 Arena
March 10, 2017 Glasgow, United Kingdom / SSE Hydro
March 11, 2017 Newcastle, United Kingdom / Newcastle Arena
March 13, 2017 Birmingham, United Kingdom / Barclaycard Arena
March 14, 2017 Leeds, United Kingdom / First Direct Arena
April 25, 2017 Vancouver / Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena
April 26, 2017 Seattle / Key Arena
April 28, 2017 San Jose, California / SAP Center
April 29, 2017 Los Angeles / The Forum
May 2, 2017 Phoenix / Talking Stick Resort Arena
May 4, 2017 Dallas / American Airlines Center
May 6, 2017 Houston / Toyota Center
May 9, 2016 New Orleans / Smoothie King Center
May 11, 2016 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida / BB&T Center
May 12, 2017 Tampa, Florida / Amalie Arena
May 13, 2017 Atlanta / Philips Arena
May 17, 2017 Charlotte, North Carolina / Spectrum Center
May 18, 2017 Washington, D.C. / Verizon Center
May 19, 2017 Atlantic City, New Jersey / Boardwalk Hall
May 23, 2017 Rosemont, Illinois / Allstate Arena
May 24, 2017 Detroit / Palace of Auburns Hills
May 26, 2017 Toronto / Air Canada Centre
May 28, 2017 Ottawa, Ontairo / Canadian Tire Centre
May 30, 2017 Montreal / Bell Centre
May 31, 2017 Quebec City / Videotron Centre
June 2, 2017 Uncasville, Connecticut / Mohegan Sun
June 3, 2017 Nassau, New York / Nassau Memorial Coliseum
June 4, 2017 Newark, New Jersey / Prudential Center
June 6, 2017 Brooklyn, New York / Barclays Center
June 9, 2017 Cincinnati, Ohio / US Bank Arena

music

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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