Live Music Now

These are the top 5 must-see concerts in Houston this week

After three weeks of RodeoHouston and then a big, successful weekend with In Bloom, one would think that the music scene would take a breather before ramping up for the summer months ahead. But spring time continues its hot streak with great shows for the live music fan. Here are the Top 5 shows coming up in Houston:

Best buzz act to see in a club before they blow up
To get a sense of how big K.Flay, also known as Kristine Meredith Flaherty, is getting, just look to this past year’s Grammy Awards. The 32-year-old alt-rock singer found herself nominated for two awards, Best Rock Song for her hit “Blood in the Cut” and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for her 2017 album Every Where Is Some Where. This put her in the company of Metallica, Foo Fighters, Roger Waters, and Bruno Mars.

Even though she didn’t pick up any hardware, the future is bright for this talented singer whose exhilarating blend of beats, guitars and in-your-face lyrics a la Alanis Morissette is set to launch her to even greater heights.

K.Flay brings the fury to White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 N Main St., on Friday, March 30. Yungblud opens. Tickets are $15 in advance, plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Yacht rock giants
The sweet, sweet harmonies of Chicago find their way to Sugar Land, where the classic rock group will bring their hits from across five (!) decades for fans who grew up to on them. Also known as one of the biggest dad rock bands of all time, Chicago has made a good late-career surge on the oldies circuit. The band started in the late-'60s when bands took to naming themselves after geographic locations for some reason (Boston, Kansas, America).

They started off releasing pretty good rock songs (“25 or 5 to 4”) before veering into the pure cheese of prom night ballads ("If You Leave Me Now," "Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away," "You're the Inspiration") that many '80s kids probably can thank for their conception, but ultimately serve as a time capsule of an era when cars were really big, hair was shaggy, and fashion gaudy. Hey, 100 million albums sold can’t be wrong.

Chicago brings the oldies to the Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land, located at 18111 Lexington Blvd. in Sugar Land, on Saturday, March 31. JD & The Straight Shot opens. Tickets start at $79.50 plus fees. Show starts at 8 pm.

Smoothest R&B sounds of the week
Critically acclaimed R&B artist Miguel brings his smooth voice and boundary pushing catalog that combines Prince and Stevie Wonder influences with the production sounds of The Weeknd and Frank Ocean to Houston for a sold out show. Miguel has been making big waves on the charts, including three top 10 albums in 2012’s Kaleidoscope Dream, 2015’s Wildheart, and 2017’s War & Leisure, the first of which is considered a modern R&B classic.

Most urban music fans will know him from the No. 1 Wale smash, “Lotus Flower Bomb, which was all over the radio back in 2011.

Miguel performs to a full house at Warehouse Live, located at 813 Saint Emanuel St., on Tuesday, April 3. Sir and Nonchalant Savant open. Tickets are sold out but you can try your luck on the ticket exchange. Doors open at 8 pm.

A side-project with a hella great singer
Brittany Howard, the booming-voiced lead singer and guitar of the massive Alabama Shakes, is taking a break from her day job to hit the road with friends Becca Mancari and Jesse Lafser as the trio Bermuda Triangle to ply acoustic based Americana tunes. The group only has two recorded songs right now, the tropicalia-tinged “Rosey,” and rootsy “Suzanne” so expect to hear cover tunes and hopefully new renditions of songs from her other band.

Bermuda Triangle plays at the Heights Theater, located at 339 W. 9th St., on Wednesday, April 4. Liz Cooper & The Stampede, Becca Mancari open. Tickets are $20, plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Best NOLA party in HOU
By now, you’ve might have heard the story of Tank and the Bangas. The New Orleans funk-soul band, fronted by Tarriona “Tank” Ball and founded in 2011, broke it big when it won the NPR Tiny Desk Concert competition out of thousands of entries in 2017. The victory launched their career and they’ve been on the road ever since. The group quickly gained fame for putting on thrilling and infectious live shows emphasizing interaction between the band and audience. They are touring behind the release of the 2017 single, “Quick.”

Tank and the Bangas bring the NOLA party to White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 N Main St., on Thursday, April 5. Tickets are $16 in advance, plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

New Orleans funk-soul band Tank and the Bangas plays White Oak Music Hall on Thursday, April 5.

Gus Bennett

New Orleans funk-soul band Tank and the Bangas plays White Oak Music Hall on Thursday, April 5.

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Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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