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Power-posing Greta Van Fleet gets ready to rock Houston on highly anticipated new world tour

Rockers Greta Van Fleet will play Toyota Center on July 28.

Photo courtesy of Greta Van Fleet

Classic rock-influenced band Greta Van Fleet confused and inspired many when they debuted in 2012. Fusing Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and even The Doors, the young act from Michigan dripped with a bombastic, bluesy, stadium rock vibe that didn't exactly jibe with pop acts their age.

Now, the band consisting of brothers Jake, Josh, and Sam Kiszka plus Daniel Wagner boast a legion of diehard fans, a Grammy Award, and are set to launch a highly anticipated third studio album, Starcatcher, slated to drop July 21. Fans can catch the quartet when they head hit Toyota Center on July 28 — just days after the Starcatcher release date — on the appropriately titled Starcatcher World Tour.

Houston fans who can't get enough Greta can also catch them at Fort Worth's Dickies Arena on July 27 — the only other Texas tour stop. The tour kicks off in Nashville on July 24 and will dot the globe before finally ending in Portugal in December. GVF (as they're known) will tour with Icelandic stud rockers Kaleo, plus Surf Curse, Mt. Joy, and Black Honey in support.

Tickets will be available for the Electric Tomb Presale beginning at 10 am Wednesday, April 19. in the U.S. and Europe. Expect more presale opportunities ahead of the general onsale starting at 10 am Friday, April 21. Score tickets and more Starcatcher World Tour information here.

Legendary among fans for their frenetic live shows, Greta Van Fleet has sold more than 1 million concert tickets worldwide and come with a host of accolades for their 2021 sophomore album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate. Debuting as Billboard's No. 1 Rock Album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate was also named Billboard's No. 1 Hard Rock Album, Vinyl Album, and ranked No. 2 in theTop Album Sales category. The band landed their first Grammy Award for their 2017 EP, From The Fires.

Known for brash, rock 'n' rollin', give-zero-effs showmanship, the band isn't without controversy. Lead singer Josh Kiszka sparked a hashtag campaign (#SpeakUpGVF) for what many considered was his cultural appropriation of Indigenous culture — namely his on-stage costuming. Kiszka took to Instagram to acknowledge the controversy.

No telling if the band will prompt new hashtag campaigns: perhaps regarding which politician they'd like to drop acid with?

Here are the current Starcatcher World Tour dates:

July 24—Nashville, TN—Bridgestone Arena*

July 27—Fort Worth, TX—Dickies Arena*

July 28—Houston —Toyota Center*

July 31—Denver, CO—Ball Arena*

August 2—Salt Lake City, UT—Vivint Arena*

August 4—Seattle, WA—Climate Pledge Arena*

August 5—Portland, OR—Veterans Memorial Coliseum*

August 8—Oakland, CA—Oakland Arena*

August 10—Los Angeles, CA—The Kia Forum*

August 12—Las Vegas, NV—T-Mobile Arena*

September 3—St. Paul, MN—Xcel Energy Center†

September 6—Chicago, IL—Allstate Arena†

September 8—Detroit, MI—Little Caesars Arena†

September 11—Washington DC—Capital One Arena†

September 12—New York, NY—Madison Square Garden†

September 15—Boston, MA—TD Garden†

September 16-17—Asbury Park, NJ—Sea Hear Now Festival 2023

September 19—Philadelphia, PA—Wells Fargo Center†

September 22—Indianapolis, IN—Gainbridge Fieldhouse†

September 23—Cleveland, OH—Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse†

November 6—Hamburg, Germany—Sporthalle^

November 8—Amsterdam, Netherlands—Ziggo Dome^

November 9—Paris, France—Accor Arena^

November 12—Brussels, Belgium—Forest National^

November 14—London, UK—OVO Arena Wembley^

November 16—Dublin, Ireland—3Arena^

November 19—Manchester, UK—AO Arena^

November 20—Glasgow, UK—OVO Hydro^

November 26—Copenhagen, Denmark—Forum+

November 28—Munich, Germany—Zenith+

November 30—Bologna, Italy—Unipol Arena+

December 3—Barcelona, Spain—Sant Jordi Club+

December 4—Madrid, Spain—WiZink Center+

December 6—Lisbon, Portugal—Campo Pequeno+

Tour key:

*with Kaleo

†with Surf Curse

^with Mt. Joy

+with Black Honey

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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