Concert News

100-city tour brings Avatar: The Last Airbender concert to Houston

Avatar: The Last Airbender In Concert will hit 100 cities including Houston.

Photo courtesy of GEA Live Marketing (Quatro Entertainment)

Fans will get to experience the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender in a whole new way when the tour Avatar: The Last Airbender In Concert comes to Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land on Wednesday, September 18.

This will be the first opportunity for fans to experience the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender in a live format.

The Houston-area concert is part of a massive 100-city worldwide tour set to begin in Düsseldorf, Germany on April 27 and lasting through May 2025.

The tour will spread its love around Texas, with the following stops:

Dallas on September 15
San Antonio on September 19
Austin on September 20
Fort Worth on September 21

In other words, all the five cities where CultureMap has news bureaus. Smart thinking, Avatar.

Presented by Nickelodeon, GEA Live, and Senbla Avatar: The Last Airbender In Concert will be an over two-hour show featuring a live orchestra playing the show’s iconic musical score alongside highlights and favorite moments from all three seasons of the series.

Emmy Award-winning composer and musician Jeremy Zuckerman has teamed up with show co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and editor Jeff Adams to expand the series original compositions for the concert series.

Tickets for the tour will go on sale on Friday, April 19at 10 am at Avatarinconcert.com.

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES

SEP 7: Gammage Auditorium | Tempe, AZ
SEP 10: Buell Theatre | Denver, CO
SEP 11: Orpheum Theatre | Omaha, NE
SEP 12: The Fabulous Fox | St. Louis, MO
SEP 13: Des Moines Civic Center | Des Moines, IA
SEP 15: Majestic Theatre | Dallas, TX
SEP 17: Walton Arts Center | Fayetteville, AR
SEP 18: Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land | Sugar Land, TX
SEP 19: Majestic Theatre | San Antonio, TX
SEP 20: Bass Concert Hall | Austin, TX
SEP 21: Will Rogers Auditorium | Fort Worth, TX
SEP 27 & 28: National Theatre | Washington, D.C.
SEP 29: Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts | Greensboro, NC
OCT 1: Mahalia Jackson Theatre | New Orleans, LA
OCT 3: Straz Center | Tampa Bay, FL
OCT 4: West Palm Beach, FL
OCT 5: Walt Disney Theatre | Orlando, FL
OCT 6: Moran Theater | Jacksonville, FL
OCT 8: Kings Theatre | Brooklyn, NY
OCT 9: Met Opera House | Philadelphia, PA
OCT 10: Count Basie Theatre | Red Bank, NJ
OCT 11: Oakdale Theatre | Wallingford, CT
OCT 12: Emerson Colonial Theater | Boston, MA
OCT 13: New Jersey Performing Arts Center | Newark, NJ
OCT 15: Belk Theatre | Charlotte, NC
OCT 16: The Hippodome Theatre | Baltimore, MD
OCT 17: KeyBank State Theatre | Cleveland, OH
OCT 18: Miller High Life Theatre | Milwaukee, WI
OCT 19: Cadillac Palace Theatre | Chicago, IL
OCT 20: Fisher Theatre | Detroit, MI
OCT 24: Palace Theatre | Columbus, OH
OCT 25: Overture Center For The Arts | Madison, WI
OCT 26: Murat Theatre | Indianapolis, IN
OCT 27: Andrew Jackson Hall | Nashville, TN
OCT 29: The Kentucky Center | Louisville, KY
OCT 30: Procter and Gamble Hall | Cincinnati, OH
NOV 2: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts | Kansas CIty, MO
NOV 3: Orpheum Theatre | Minneapolis, MN
NOV 6: First Interstate Center for the Arts | Spokane, WA
NOV 7: Hult Center | Eugene, OR
NOV 8: Keller Auditorium Hall | Portland, OR
NOV 9: Moore Theatre | Seattle, WA
NOV 11: Velma V. Morrison Center for the Performing Arts | Boise, ID
NOV 12: Eccles Theatre | Salt Lake City, UT
NOV 14: SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center | Sacramento, CA
NOV 15: Fox Theatre | Riverside, CA
NOV 16: Reynolds Hall | Las Vegas, NV
NOV 17: Segerstrom Center for the Arts | Costa Mesa, CA
NOV 19 & 20: San Jose Center for the Performing Arts | San Jose, CA
NOV 21: San Diego Civic Center | San Diego, CA
NOV 22 & 23: Los Angeles, CA
NOV 24: Centennial Hall | Tucson, AZ

Movie Review

Offbeat drama Pillion features command performance by Alexander Skarsgård

Photo courtesy of A24

Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling in Pillion.

Describing the new movie Pillion is almost an act of futility. It contains a variety of seemingly disparate parts that coalesce into a whole to make it utterly fascinating. Few other recent films have been able to walk the line between filthy and wholesome in quite the way this one does, and that’s only because few other filmmakers would actually dare to try.

It centers on Colin (Harry Melling), a meek man in his mid-thirties who still lives at home with his parents, Pete (Douglas Hodge) and Peggy (Lesley Sharp), while working a dead-end job giving out parking tickets. While performing in a barbershop quartet at his local pub, Colin catches the eye of biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who summons him for a clandestine hook-up the following day (which just so happens to be Christmas Day).

With barely a word exchanged between them, Ray establishes a dominance over Colin that quickly leads to them starting a relationship in which Colin does anything Ray asks. And that means more than just sex: Colin, whether desperate for any kind of affection or unlocking a side of himself he hadn’t known, readily agrees to cook, clean, shop, and basically do whatever else Ray wants him to do.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton, the film is astonishing in the way it’s able to mine humor from Colin and Ray’s atypical bond. To call Ray “unfeeling” might not be totally accurate, but the way he treats Colin borders on cruel. However, the way Lighton structures the film, it’s easy to understand why someone like Colin would be willing to go along with the situation. It’s both hilarious and heartbreaking to see Colin debase himself in a variety of ways.

On the flip side is Colin’s heartfelt arc with his parents. It’s established right away that Peggy, who is sick with cancer, is a bit too involved with Colin’s love life, with the opening scene featuring her setting him up on a blind date. But their easy acceptance of his queerness and desire to see him find love is as heartwarming as it gets. The juxtaposition between the wholesomeness of their family and Colin’s new life is also the source of a good amount of comedy.

Lighton does not shy away from the sexual side of Colin and Ray’s relationship, and the scenes he depicts are as graphic as you are likely to see in an R-rated film. Some go up to and a little past what might be expected in a mainstream movie (including the use of a certain fake appendage). Other times they play out in a comical way to illustrate just how far Colin has progressed from the person he was when the film started.

Skarsgård, who stole the show in the Charli XCX movie The Moment, is the attraction in more ways than one in this film. The part calls for someone who’s not only impossibly handsome, but also a person who can stop dissent with just a glance, and he lives up to both qualities equally well. Melling, best known for playing Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies, also embodies his role perfectly. He plays Colin as weak enough to be run roughshod over by Ray, but not so hopeless as to not be worth rooting for.

Pillion (which is the name of the secondary seat on a motorcycle on which Colin rides multiple times in the film) operates at a storytelling level that is difficult to achieve. Many people will not fully understand the film’s central relationship, but the way it is showcased by Lighton makes it compelling, gut-wrenching, and sexy.

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Pillion is now playing in theaters.

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