Rockin' Around the Bayou Scene

QOTSA, Train, and more headline the best concerts in Houston this December

Queens of the Stone Age rock Houston December 9.

Photo via Queens of the Stone Age/Facebook

Forget Christmas carols, live music is making its presence felt in the Bayou City this December.

The last month of the year is generally considered one of the slower ones in the concert world. The holidays aren’t exactly prime time for artists to tour with the hustle and bustle of gift-buying and visits from Santa. But in a post-COVID world, the amped up music industry is different, and artists are touring well into the yuletide season.

This month sees major acts across several different genres hitting local stages, including the pop-R&B of Janet Jackson, adult alternative with Train, hip-hop in Rod Wave and alt-rock with Queens of the Stone Age. In other words, there’s something for every kind of music fan – naughty or nice.

Here are the best concerts to close out 2023.

Janet Jackson, December 1, NRG Arena

Taking its name from her triple-platinum album, The Velvet Rope, pop-R&B superstar Janet Jackson’s Together Again U.S. tour rolls into town after kicking off way back in April. She hasn’t put an album of original material out since 2015’s Unbreakable, but that hasn’t stopped crowds from coming to see her very own Eras Tour.

Jackson’s setlist covers songs from across her career, including those from the mega-selling Control, Rhythm Nation 1814 and Janet, and her performances are drawing rave reviews.

Old 97’s, December 6, House of Blues

Almost an exact year after they appeared in the “The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special” as Nowhere’s house band, the Dallas cult-act, Old 97’s, returns to Houston. The band garnered critical and commercial acclaim in the mid-‘90s, partially thanks to their energetic take on alt-country, and partially thanks to lead singer-guitarist Rhett Miller’s striking good looks.

Expect songs from their twelfth album released in 2020, aptly named, Twelfth. Jarret Reddick opens.

Train, December 7, 713 Music Hall

Hey soul sisters, adult-alternative superstars, Train, will headline the Mix 96.5’s Holiday Deck The Hall Ball. If you haven’t heard “Drops of Jupiter” or “Meet Virginia” enough times at the grocery store, dentist office, or on the car radio on the way to the school drop-off line, this should be a good show – the Train gang continues to sell boatloads of tickets at mid-to-large-sized venues across the country.

This appearance at 713 Music Hall will be a bit more intimate than their usual stopping points. Benson Boone opens.

Rod Wave, December 7, Toyota Center

Rod Wave is currently riding a big one. The prolific, Florida-raised rapper is celebrating his third consecutive No. 1 album in as many years. Nostalgia, released this year followed the similarly huge Soulfly (2021) and Beautiful Mind (2022) thanks to the strength of several Top 40 singles including “Heart On Ice,” “Street Runner,” “Tombstone,” and “By Your Side.” The deft storyteller is quickly rising to superstar status. Ari Lennox, Toosii, and Eelmatic open.

Queens of the Stone Age with Spiritualized, December 9, 713 Music Hall

Queens of the Stone Age QOTSA Queens of the Stone Age plays December 9. Photo by Andreas Neumann

While their commercial heyday of the mid-aughts might be behind them, the Josh Homme-led collective, Queens of the Stone Age, has before and since released good-to-great albums, including this year’s Grammy Rock Album-nominated In Times New Roman… They remain one of the last exciting touring alt-rock bands, always worth the price of admission for the leather jacket-wearing set.

What makes this show a must-attend event is opener, psych-rock outfit, Spiritualized, whose masterpiece, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, once beat out Radiohead’s OK Computer for album of the year in the revered U.K. music mag, NME. The Jason Pierce-fronted group released their fantastic album, Everything Was Beautiful, last year.

Black Pumas, December 9 & 10, House of Blues

What a rise for Austin-based duo, Black Pumas. Adrian Quesada and the buttery-soul-voiced Eric Burton became one of those acts that emerged of the pandemic with a spotlight firmly shining on them. Their self-titled 2019 album and its huge single, “Colors,” earned them four Grammy nominations. They are cashing in on that goodwill following the release of this year’s Chronicles of a Diamond, showcasing their killer live chops with two shows at House of Blues.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra, December 10, Toyota Center

Not to be confused with Mannheim Steamroller, which makes an appearance at the Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land later this month, the holiday lights and sound bonanza, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, makes its yearly pilgrimage to the Toyota Center with its show, “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve – The Best of the TSO and More.” If rock-metal versions of your favorite seasonal tunes set to eye-popping visuals don’t bring you festive cheer, you might be the Grinch.

Charlie Mars, December 12, McGonigel’s Mucky Duck

Starting his career as a student at Southern Methodist University, singer-songwriter Charlie Mars worked the college circuit before catching his big break when the now defunct V2 Records won a bidding war to release his self-titled album in 2004. It catapulted him to sharing stages with R.E.M. and The (then Dixie) Chicks as well as a four-year romance Weeds actress Mary-Louise Parker. In other words, not too shabby. His new album, Times Have Changed, features local ties, being released by boutique label, Foxgate Records, owned by local businessman and fellow SMU alum, Jay Fields.

Toadies with Local H, December 29, House of Blues

One of the more reliable fun nights out, north Texas alt-rock act Toadies have made an end-of-year trip down I-45 a regular occurrence. Best known for ‘90s hits “Possum Kingdom” and “I Come From the Water” from the platinum-selling Rubberneck, Toadies still bring it hard in a live setting and still get regular airplay on rock stations. This year, they are bringing another great, underrated ‘90s cult act, Local H, the Scott Lucas-led duo that rose to prominence on alt-rock radio and MTV with the stoned-out angst anthem with the super-catchy guitar riff, “Bound for the Floor.”

K.Flay, December 29, White Oak Music Hall

A songwriter very much of her time, K.Flay gained notoriety by mish-mashing genres into a hitmaking DIY brew of indie, hip-hop and EDM, most notably on the alt-rock smash, “Blood in the Cut,” from her 2017 breakthrough, Every Where Is Some Where. It won her Grammy nods, movie and TV placements, and collaborations with a variety of who’s-who in rock, dance, and rap. Her latest is this year’s Mono, inspired in part by her sudden deafness in one ear.

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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