Live Music Now

These are the 7 best concerts in Houston this week

Welcome to peak concert season, Houston.

The weather is perfect, as evidenced by a great past weekend that saw just warm enough temps at the legendary Art Car Ball and Parade. Sure, a little rain blew in near the end of Saturday's event, but this is the best time to take to local concert venues before the sweaty humidity makes it very hard to look cool. (Note: armpit stains and back sweat aren't pretty.)

And while this would be the time when music festivals dot the landscape, we'll just have to settle for very strong lineups of the best touring talent at one of the many concert venues in town.

CultureMap's biggest, best, and most notable shows are as follows:

B2K and more at Smart Financial
Fans of early-2000s R&B and hip-hop will want to check out the Millennium Tour at Smart Financial. The show will be headlined by former boy band B2K, which found success with the No. 1 song "Bump, Bump, Bump" before band member Omarion set off on a successful solo career.

Other acts on the bill include crooner Mario, hip-hop act The Ying Yang Twins, Chingy, Pretty Ricky, Lloyd, and Bobby V. Due to demand, two shows will bring the smooth grooves on Wednesday and Saturday.

B2K headlines the Millennium Tour at Smart Financial Centre, located at 18111 Lexington Blvd. in Sugar Land, on Wednesday, April 17 and Saturday, April 20. Tickets start at $59.50 plus fees. Doors open at 6:30 pm.

CultureMap show of the week: Maren Morris
The march toward RodeoHouston 2020 starts at Revention Music Center this Thursday, when fast-rising country chanteuse Maren Morris rides into town. Morris, part of the new wave of young female country talent (see: Kacey Musgraves), is in the midst of her world tour behind her latest album, Girl.

The Dallas native garnered mainstream attention with the critically acclaimed 2016 collection Hero, has been covered by every major music publication, and has found herself as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Fans of Taylor Swift's earlier country pop hybrid will find a lot to love at this show as she works her way through hits such as "Girl" and "Rich." The next stage we might see her on could be at NRG Stadium next winter.

Maren Morris headlines the Revention Music Center, located at 520 Texas Ave., on Thursday, April 18. RaeLynn opens. Tickets start at $40 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Com Truise at Warehouse Live
The cheekily named Com Truise aka Seth Haley has been grinding away under the familiar sounding moniker since 2011, making bass-driven tunes with catchy melodies that stick in your head. Put it this way, his last album, Iteration, was about a robot astronaut that falls in love during a mission in space. If that kind of weirdness is your thing, get on your dancing shoes. Com Truise will be releasing a new album, Persuasion System, in May.

Com Truise brings the beats to Warehouse Live, located at 813 St Emanuel St., on Thursday, April 18. Jack Grace and Ginla open. Tickets start at $20 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Gangstagrass at Last Concert Café
Beats and banjos. It was bound to happen eventually. Fans of the fantastic FX series Justified will be familiar with Gangstagrass, a unlikely fusion of hip-hop and bluegrass that somehow works. The New York City act earned themselves an Emmy nomination for the theme song of the Timothy Olyphant vehicle, "Long Hard Times to Come." But the six-piece has been putting out records for sometime now, starting off with the aptly named Rappalachia. If you're a fan of Jay-Z and Johnny Cash, this might be the perfect show.

Gangstagrass performs at Last Concert Café, located at 1403 Nance St., on Friday, April 19. Tickets start at $15 plus fees. Doors open at 8 p.m.

Brandy at Arena Theatre
It's easy to forget how huge Brandy was at her peak. In the late '90s and early 2000s, the California-raised singer was on the music charts, in movies, and even had her own TV show. She scored No. 1 hits with "The Boy is Mine" and "Have You Ever," in addition to the top 10 hits "Sittin' Up in My Room," "Baby," and "I Wanna Be Down." Even if her career hasn't been able to maintain those highs, there will be plenty of fans that grew up with her ready to groove at Arena Theatre.

Brandy is at Arena Theatre, located at 7326 Southwest Fwy., on Saturday, April 20. After 7 opens. Tickets start at $59.50 plus fees. Doors open at 8:30 pm.

Patty Griffin at Heights Theater
This show is sold out and rightfully so. The Maine-bred Patty Griffin is one of the foremost folk singer-songwriters in the world, influencing countless artists. If you're into the wood and wires, bare-your-soul sound, this show will be worth the price of dishing out the money on the resale market for an artist that could have easily sold out a show in a venue twice as large. She's touring her latest, self-titled album, which is being hailed as one of her best in a long and storied career.

Patty Griffin plays a sold-out show at Heights Theater, located at 339 W 19th St, on Saturday, April 20. Tenielle Townes opens. Tickets are sold out, but check the resale market. Doors open at 7 pm.

Hometown proud: Tobe Nwigwe at White Oak
A product of Alief High School, Tobe Nwigwe is making noise in the hip-hop scene and, with his talent, has the opportunity to grow into one of the most notable rappers from H-town since Travis Scott. The first generation Nigerian-American brings positivity to his music, as evidenced by his debut album, Might Get Slid, and his many EPs and mixtapes. Nwigwe's career has been gaining traction with his many videos as well as the single, "Gaining," appearing on the popular CW show, The Originals.

Tobe Nwigwe plays at White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 N. Main St., on Saturday, April 20. The Watson Twins open. Tickets start at $28 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

CultureMap recommends: Snow Patrol at Revention
Make no mistake: there'd be no Ed Sheeran with out Snow Patrol. The thinking man's Coldplay, the Scottish band never got the same love as that band, both of whom burst on the scene in the early 2000s. But the latter might have the better catalog, filled with gorgeous melancholic melodies.

Still, Snow Patrol garnered some massive acclaim and radio play with hits such as "Run" and "Chasing Cars," racking up 15 million album sales worldwide with grandiose and earnestly felt heartfelt songs. See them on their comeback tour with their latest album, Wildness, their first in seven years.

Snow Patrol makes their comeback at the Revention Music Center, located at 520 Texas Ave., on Sunday, April 18. Tickets start at $35 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Country star Maren Morris performs at Revention Music Center on Thursday, April 18.

Photo courtesy of Columbia

Country star Maren Morris performs at Revention Music Center on Thursday, April 18.

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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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