Live Music Now

Here are the 6 best concerts in Houston this week

Before the best shows of the week, let's talk about one of the best performances of the week.

It's time to give thanks this Thanksgiving week to Houston performer and musician Sarah Grace, the 15-year-old who is making a serious impact on the hit NBC reality music competition series, The Voice. She is in the final 13 performers on the show out of 30,000 who originally auditioned. On November 19, she gave a great rendition of Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."

She is awaiting the word whether she'll move on to the next round, but we wish her all the best. Expect to see her perform soon her band, Sarah Grace and the Soul around town after all this done. They already have a December 22 gig booked at the Big Barn at the Dosey Doe in the Woodlands.

Meanwhile, there is plenty to do in the live music world to discuss, so here's CultureMap's best, biggest, and notable shows of the week.

Rezz at Revention
The last time Rezz hit Houston, it was at last year's Day for Night Festival (RIP), giving a memorable set. This 23-year-old wunderkind is almost single-handedly keeping the dream of mainstream EDM alive. Her talents were noticed early on by the mouse-mask-wearing Deadmau5, and she's been filling dance floors for the last few years with her dark melodies, heavy bass, and minimal beats, not to mention killer light show. If you thought her Day for Night set was too short, this is your chance to see the full Rezz experience. She's touring behind her new album, Certain Kind of Magic.

Rezz is at Revention Music Center, located at 520 Texas Ave., on Wednesday, November 21. Boogie T and Golf Clap open. Tickets start at $35 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Ashanti and Ja Rule bring the old school
The big question with this show is will Fifty Cent's beef with Ja Rule carry over to this show? The two made some noise recently when 50 Cent mocked the price of his November 9 show in Arlington, taking it one step further by buying 200 front row tickets just so they'd be empty. That's some petty stuff. That probably won't happen this Friday when Ja comes to town with hip-hop/R&B queen Ashanti. Fans of early 2000s hip-hop will find something to like here as both performers were at one point, two of the biggest in the game, no thanks to their many collaborations that include "Always On Time," "Down 4 U," and "Mesmerize."

Ashanti and Ja Rule are at Arena Theatre, located at 7326 Southwest Fwy., on Friday, November 23. Tickets start at $49.50 plus service fees. Doors open at 8:30 pm.

CultureMap recommends: H-Town Thanksgiving
From a strictly social anthropology standpoint, the H-Town Thanksgiving show at White Oak on Thursday will be a killer show to get a good lesson on the historically strong Houston hip-hop scene. A who's-who of local artists will be spitting rhymes, recalling the Houston hip-hop Renaissance of the early 2000s. Performers include Z-Ro, Slim Thug, Lil Keke, Lil Flip, Paul Wall, and Yung Martez. That's a great line-up to help work off that turkey and pumpkin pie.

H-Town Thanksgiving goes down at White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 N. Main St., on Thursday, November 22. Tickets start at $50 plus service fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Band of Heathens
One of the more popular acts in the Americana genre, Austin's Band of Heathens has been making some serious waves over the last decade with their mix of Texas rock, blues, and soul. They will be celebrating the release of new album, A Message from the People Revisited, which is a cover of Ray Charles' seminal 1972 album that spoke to tumultuous times in the country. Proceeds of album sales will go to charities that work on social justice and be dedicated to their long time friend and producer, George Reiff, who passed away from cancer in May 2017.

Band of Heathens are at the Heights Theater, located at 339 W. 19th St., on Friday, November 23. Tickets are $24 plus service charges. Doors open at 7 p.m.

The Band of Heathens — A Message from The People Revisited (album release)
https://www.prekindle.com/event/57278-the-band-of-heathens-houston

Blue October homecoming show
Alt-rock act Blue October has deep roots in Houston and will be performing a hometown show, likely after visiting family and friends for Thanksgiving. While Blue October's better days are behind them, they still have plenty of fans who will be looking forward to singing their hits like "Hate Me," "Into the Ocean," "Dirt Room," and "Say It." Blue October is touring behind their new album, I Hope You're Happy.

Blue October headlines at at Revention Music Center, located at 520 Texas Ave., on Saturday, November 24. Tickets start at$38 plus service fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

CultureMap show of the week: Willie Nelson
Make jokes about his smoking habits all you want, but Willie Nelson is nothing but prolific as a musician, having produced over 200 albums(!) in his career. He has two albums out this year: the critically acclaimed, Last Man Standing, and the standards cover album, My Way. He's also on the road a lot, but always has a soft spot for Texas (he once had a radio gig in Pasadena), having played several times in the state throughout 2018. He'll play the Houston area one more time this year in Sugar Land with several of his musically inclined family members in tow.

Willie Nelson brings the family to the Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land, located at 18111 Lexington Blvd. in Sugar Land, on Sunday, November 25. Tickets start at $64 plus service fees. Doors open at 7:30 pm.

23-year-old wunderkind DJ, Rezz, performs at Revention Music Center on Wednesday, November 21.

Rezz/Facebook

23-year-old wunderkind DJ, Rezz, performs at Revention Music Center on Wednesday, November 21.

music nightlife concerts column

welcome home, wes

Wes Anderson's Houston homecoming supports historic theater restoration

A fancy, eccentric-looking crowd showed up for the Wes Anderson Homecoming Soirée, held on Friday, July 17, at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts’s Zilkha Hall.

Fans of the Houston-born, Oscar-winning auteur paid hundreds of dollars to attend this benefit event. Guys dressed up like characters from The Royal Tenenbaums. Others wore red skull caps and low-top Adidas, like the characters from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Some people working the event even wore “Lobby Boy” hats, looking like the bellboy character from The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The people gathered for two reasons: 1) to get a chance to see Anderson in person; and 2) to raise money to renovate and restore the Garden Oaks Theater, a project spearheaded by local nonprofit Arthouse Houston. Top-tier “Founders Experience” ticketholders got a chance to meet Anderson onstage for pics. The St. John's School alum also received a proclamation from Mayor John Whitmire declaring it “Wes Anderson Day.”

After that, he and actor/fellow SJS alum Michael Maggart (who has appeared in several Anderson films) held a half-hour discussion where they reminisced about making Rushmore here in Houston, Anderson’s days working at the Bookstop on W. Alabama (now a Trader Joe’s), and how he and frequent collaborator Owen Wilson used to sneak into the River Oaks Theatre. (It involved pretending to lose a pair of glasses.)

Of course, the conversation shifted to Anderson coming back home to support the Garden Oaks project. “I always say you can't build an old building,” Anderson said. “First of all, I mean, a beautiful old place has history, and has people's experiences tied into it, and it has stories involved in it. And I think an old cinema — these things are kind of endangered all over the world, and it's not just an architectural thing. It's not even just a community thing. It's a sort of delivery system for something that’s, to me, deeply important to our country.

“It’s one thing we can access these things on all these devices,” he continued. “It's a different thing when you go to a place that's designed to help you share the experience of a movie together. It's such a powerful art form. And, anyway, for me, it's worth making a bit of an effort to try to save a place like the Garden Oaks.”

After the convo, he introduced the quintet of films he curated for the event. (Unfortunately the DCP file for his 2007 short Hotel Chevalier had some technical difficulties and was cut short.) “We wanted to do a screening here, and I don't have a new movie to show,” he said. “I don't have something hot off the presses. So, I thought I'd put together a little something that just was different from what anybody else will see. So it's a sort of mixture… This is just for Texas, this little collection.”

He eventually left the stage, leaving Arthouse Houston co-founder/director Maureen McNamara and Houston Public Media host Ernie Manouse to auction off perks & gifts and encourage the audience in helping revive another legendary, local movie palace. Among other items, attendees bid for treasures such as a special John Waters backstage VIP experience at his upcoming Christmas Show, dinner with John Cameron Mitchell, and a rare set of photo portraits of a young Anderson and friends, circa Bottle Rocket. Others paid $5,000 for select seats in the future theater and $5,000 to restore one foot of the venue's neon sign.

Photo by Alan Nguyen

Mayor John Whitmire declared Friday as Wes Anderson day in the director's honor.

So far, the effort has raised approximately $1.3 million of the $4 million required to begin the renovation project. The organization needs to raise $4 million by July 30 for the project to move forward. Those interested in securing naming rights will find more information here.

“River Oaks has 245 seats,” McNamara informed the crowd. “The Garden has over 700, and that is a place that we don't have in Houston. We have a need for that, for premieres, for performances in your life, for music, for a dynamic learning & exhibition space… So, we're building new on the shoulders of our history. I hope you guys will join us, and we need people to join us in a big way today.”

wes anderson garden oaks rushmore houston fundraisers