Live Music Now

13 hottest concerts to catch in Houston this November

CultureMap Show of the Month: Carrie Underwood, Toyota Center, Thursday, November 3

Photo by Randee St. Nicholas

Has 2022 been the best year for live music in H-Town?

Judging by the pure volume of tours rolling through Houston, there is no doubt this year will go down as one of the most memorable in recent history. November shows no signs of things slowing down, tours only taking a break during Thanksgiving, before picking back up again.

Concert promoters — still left standing after the pandemic — are in a state of cashing-in euphoria as crowds are seemingly willing to pay whatever price to see a live performance again. How long will the glow-up last for the music industry and how long will concert goers continue to pay often exorbitant numbers? That remains to be seen.

In the meantime, use this guide to select your shows wisely with CultureMap's most notable shows of the month.

CultureMap Show of the Month: Carrie Underwood with Jimmie Allen
Thursday, November 3
Toyota Center
1510 Polk St.

At one point, a few years past her fourth season American Idol win, Carrie Underwood looked like she would rocket into the stratosphere much like a fellow country-leaning ingenue that Swift-ly rose to stadium-conquering levels. While Underwood’s career didn’t quite hit those rarely attainable heights, she is one of the most successful singers of the past 20 years, revered in music circles as one of the most talented vocalists of her generation with eight GRAMMY Awards and three ACM Entertainer of the Year trophies. The pop-country superstar is back in Houston, ready to show off her otherworldly vocal pipes on The Denim & Rhinestones tour.

Tickets start at $59.50 plus fees. Doors open at 6:30 pm.

Demi Lovato with Dead Sara
Thursday, November 3
713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin St., Suite 1600

When did Demi Lovato turn into the chameleon of the pop world? Beginning on children’s TV and as a Disney star in the Camp Rock films, Levato has since then transformed herself into an edgy, smart pop queen. Her entire catalog of studio albums placed in the Top Ten on the Billboard charts despite her dealing with some very public personal issues with substance abuse. The name of her Holy Fvck tour says it all about her latest look – infusing vinyl, BDSM-wear with rock hooks.

Tickets start at $49.50 plus fees. Show starts at 8 pm.

CultureMap Recommends: Foals with Inner Wave and Gustaf
Thursday, November 3
White Oak Music Hall, 2915 N. Main St.

Hard to describe how huge the danceable U.K. rock act Foals is back home, but we’ll try: six albums landing in the Top Three on the British charts, Brit Awards (the English version of the Grammys) for Best Group, and universal acclaim. Thankfully for us, instead of paying hundreds of pounds to see them at a massive festival, they’ll play in more intimate confines in Houston. Oh yeah, their new album, this year’s Life Is Yours, is one of 2022’s best.

Tickets start at $35.50 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Bonnie Raitt with Mark Cohn
Friday, November 4
Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land, 1811 Lexington Blvd.

Yet another Grammy Award winner in town in early November, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and revered singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt rode her blend of blues, R&B, rock, and pop to mainstream success, namely winning Album of the Year for 1989’s Nick of Time. That album went five-times platinum and she hasn’t really stopped since, a pro’s-pro as a touring musician, hugely influential on the female performers who came after her. Her latest is this year’s Just Like That…, drawing on a range of influences. Cohn, meanwhile, is sure to score singalongs with his hit "Walking in Memphis."

Tickets start at $49.50 plus fees. Show starts at 8 pm.

Alvvays with Slow Pulp
Friday, November 4
White Oak Music Hall, 2915 N. Main St.

There’s no other band making better shimmering, beautifully catchy indie-pop like Toronto-based act Alvvays (pronounced Always). Fronted by the seemingly perpetually shy Molly Rankin, she grew up in the fertile Atlantic Canada music scene before forming Alvvays, who garnered immediate attention for their perfect self-titled debut and its equally perfect introductory single, “Archie, Marry Me.” Returning five years after their last record, Antisocialites, this year’s long-awaited Blue Rev veers into heavier, shoegaze sounds and continues their run of impeccable musical production.

Tickets start at $22.50 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Bell Biv Devoe, En Vogue, Tony! Toni! Toné! and Stokely
Saturday, November 5
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins Dr.

It’s about to heat up in The Woodlands as some of the most sultry R&B acts of the early ‘90s take over the suburbs. Bell Biv Devoe hit it big with the timeless singles, “Poison” and “Do Me,” which brought an unabashed sexiness to MTV. En Vogue is one of the most successful all-female R&B groups of all time with 30 million albums sold, is best known for the gender-flipped female empowerment anthems, “Free Your Mind” and “My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It).” The unbelievably named Tony! Toni! Toné! achieved platinum-level success with 1990's The Revival and single, “Feels Good.” Together, they will bring the vibes when they hit Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on November 5.

Tickets start at $49.50 plus fees. Gates open at 4:30 pm.

Red Bull SoundClash: Gary Clark, Jr. vs. Paul Wall
Thursday, November 10
713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin St., Suite 1600

The Red Bull SoundClash is back after the success of last year’s fantastically produced “versus” format that featured the “Queens of Gulf Soul,” represented by Houston’s The Suffers and New Orleans’ Tank and the Bangas. This year, the two-stage setup will be a battle between Austin and Houston with the uber-talented guitarist Gary Clark Jr. and local hip-hop legend Paul Wall representing their respective hometowns. The four-round, back-and-forth performances, and unpredictable guests make this an extremely fun night out with those in attendance determining the winner via crowd-decibel readers.

Tickets start at $23.50 plus fees. Show starts at 8 pm.

Chaka Khan
Friday, November 11
Arena Theatre, 7326 Southwest Fwy

Recently honored by Lizzo at her Houston show, the influence of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Chaka Khan lives on in younger generations of empowered black women thanks to anthems such as “I’m Every Woman” and “Tell Me Something Good” during her time with classic funk act, Rufus. Her storied career spans five decades with 70 million albums sold and a boatload of Grammys to show for it. It’s time to bow to the Queen of Funk.

Tickets start at $49.50 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Girl Talk
Friday, November 11
White Oak Music Hall, 2915 N. Main St.

For a time in the mid-aughts, Pittsburgh’s expert party starter Gregg Gillis aka Girl Talk was a true phenomenon. The DJ rose to fame on the backs of hundreds of indie dance club nights by splicing together seemingly disparate but familiar songs, cashing in on the short-lived, but fondly remembered mash-up era. The artistry of sampling 300 different songs on 2006’s Night Ripper took splicing and dicing to an art form and still gets dance floors banging. Since then, Gillis has released more albums of mash-up magic and found steady work as a producer of up-and-coming and noted rap acts.

Tickets start at $35 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Turnstile with Snail Mail
Saturday, November 12
Bayou Music Center, 520 Texas Ave.

Very few hard rock groups are making as many waves as Baltimore’s Turnstile. Taking cues from the decades of the East Coast hardcore scene, dosed with melodies and psychedelic pop, the quartet making a mark judged solely by the fact that notoriously nostalgic American rock and alternative radio is picking up their singles from the electrifying 2021 album, Glow On, including “Mystery” and “Holiday.” Starting in small clubs, the band is now playing in mid-sized theaters and will go on a national arena tour with Blink-182 next year. Catch them while they’re hot.

Tickets start at $43 plus fees. Show starts at 7 pm.

Amanda Shires with Honey Harper
Saturday, November 12
The Heights Theater, 339 W 19th Str

Grammy and Americana-award-winning singer-songwriter and virtuoso violinist Amanda Shires brings her critically acclaimed songbook and new album, Take It Like a Man, to the intimate Heights Theater. A member of husband Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit band, Shires has established herself in the alt-country/Americana world.

She made noise by forming The Highwomen in 2019, a gender-flipped concept inspired by The Highwaymen supergroup made up of country and western bad boys, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings. Shires shared the stage in that project with heavy hitters Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, and Natalie Hemby, but has more than earned her stature as an excellent, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.

Tickets start at $22 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

The 1975 with Blackstarkids
Wednesday, November 16
713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin St., Suite 1600

The 1975 are huge. And if they aren’t they will tell you otherwise. The world-beating chart-toppers are led by charismatic, and some may say arrogant, frontman Matt Healy who exudes a mix of Liam Gallagher’s brash swagger and the steamy moves of INXS’ Michael Hutchence. Guilty pleasure or not, the fact is The 1975 are sneaky good, mixing the best of the last 40 years of rock, not being afraid to experiment with their sound while keeping enough pop elements to keep their legion of fans interested. Their latest No. 1 is this year’s acclaimed Being Funny in a Foreign Language.

Tickets start at $65 plus fees. Show starts at 8 pm.

Judas Priest with Queensryche
Tuesday, November 29
713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin St., Suite 1600

The Judas Priest 50 Heavy Metal Years tour comes to town, a perfect opportunity for those with a penchant for leather, spikes, and “Breaking the Law.” The legendary U.K. metal act – somewhat controversially honored this year by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for musical excellence – will pull from their prolific catalog spanning decades. Expect to hear the hits from the godfathers of thrash, including “You Got Another Thing Coming,” “Turbo Lover,” and “Painkiller."

Tickets start at $59.50 plus fees. Show starts at 8 pm.

Other can't-miss shows

King Princess, Thursday, November 3, House of Blues
Highly Suspect, November 5, 713 Music Hall
Beabadoobee, November 6, White Oak Music Hall
She Wants Revenge with Twin Tribes, November 26, White Oak Music Hall
Better Than Ezra, November 6, House of Blues
Lucius with Shamir, November 6, Heights Theater
Gipsy Kings, November 7, House of Blues
Rina Sawayama, November 13, White Oak Music Hall
Joe Satriani, November 18, House of Blues
Deadmau5, November 25, 713 Music Hall
Bartees Strange, November 28, White Oak Music Hall
AFI, November 29, White Oak Music Hall

Photo by Randee St. Nicholas

CultureMap Show of the Month: Carrie Underwood at Toyota Center, Thursday, November 3.

Movie Review

Tom Cruise goes all out in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

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Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, and Hayley Atwell in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.

Over the course of 30 years and eight films, the Mission: Impossible series has proven to be the most reliable of any action movie franchise. Not all of them are equally good, but with Tom Cruise in the lead as Ethan Hunt, they can be counted on for at least a couple of mind-blowing stunt sequences per film, enough to keep fans clamoring for more.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning has the feel of being the last film in the series, and not just because the 62-year-old Cruise is getting up there in age. Following up closely on the events of 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One (Part Two changed to The Final Reckoning for unknown reasons), the film has Hunt trying to stop an A.I. villain known as The Entity from taking over the world’s collective stash of nuclear weapons.

To do so, Hunt and his cobbled-together team — Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), Grace (Hayley Atwell), and Paris (Pom Klementieff) — must hopscotch around the world, tracking villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) and trying to figure out a way to get The Entity’s source code, which is located on a sunken Russian submarine. Oh, and they also have to evade capture by a disgruntled U.S. government, led by now-President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett).

Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie and co-written by Erik Jendresen, the film might just be the most convoluted one in the series so far. The filmmakers layer on tons of exposition, with lots of flashbacks to previous events in the series to explicate the events of the present, as well as providing unexpected connections to previous films. The plan for stopping The Entity and the references to the past are so dense that the first half of the film is relatively boring.

Things pick up in the final 90 minutes of the three-hour film, mostly because that’s when the majority of the action takes place. More than other entries in the series, the film considers the geopolitical implications of Hunt’s actions, and he has to negotiate with a variety of high-powered people to do what he deems best. While his efforts are somewhat preposterous, even by the standards of the series, they lead to a bunch of fun sequences that provide levity among the world-changing drama.

Ultimately, what makes the film succeed are its action scenes. Cruise has done stunts on planes/helicopters before in the series, but what he does during a biplane sequence toward the end of the film is almost beyond belief. Yes, he’s attached to the plane with harnesses that are digitally erased, but he’s still doing it hundreds of feet in the air at great bodily risk considering. While the series has always featured spectacular stunt sequences, this one deserves to be near the top of the list.

The flashbacks to scenes from throughout the series underscore just how much Cruise has changed in the past 30 years, but also emphasize how amazing it is that he’s still willing to sacrifice his body as much as does to make these films. No other actor goes as far as he does to entertain the masses, and the events of the story even give him opportunities to show off his dramatic acting skills.

The supporting cast is more packed than usual, and all of them enhance the film. In addition to Hunt’s team, the President has a group of advisers that includes actors like Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, and Janet McTeer. Other recognizable faces like Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), Trammell Tillman (Severance), and Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) show up for impactful roles.

Whether or not this is the last film in the current incarnation of the series, The Final Reckoning has a lot to offer longtime fans, with action set pieces that remains some of the best Hollywood has to offer. The story may be completely baffling, but with Cruise and other appealing actors leading the way, there’s more than enough great entertainment to go around.

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Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning opens in theaters on May 23.

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