no shoes, no sweat

Kenny Chesney and No Shoes Nation chill out at RodeoHouston with a beachy, beer-lovin' vibe

NRG Stadium quickly became No Shoes Nation when Chesney took the stage.

Kenny Chesney RodeoHouston 2023 Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo

Every time Kenny Chesney graces the revolving RodeoHouston stage, it offers us all a slice of carefree beach life in the middle of a bustling neon and concrete jungle.

The unofficial rodeo dress code loosens a bit. A little less Cavender's and more Port Aransas beach shop during spring break. Square-toe boots give way to actually exposed toes, even with a sMarch cold front blowing down the carnival alleyways.

If you squint, the most coddled dirt in Harris County — found on the floor of NRG Stadium — could be mistaken for ruddy beach sand, at least from all way up top in the RodeoHouston press box.

On Wednesday March 15, Chesney's "No Shoes Nation" yacht (and the accompanying Blue Chair Bay Rum bus) docked at NRG Stadium for his ninth RodeoHouston performance on the star stage, in front of a crowd of 72,078.

Chesney's had a somewhat lengthy layoff from the rodeo, last appearing here in 2016. COVID, of course, likely delayed a sooner return. Early in his career, he was a rodeo mainstay each year when he was another 'hat act' looking to be the next George Strait.

His relationship with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo dates back to the Astrodome in 2001, putting him in rare air amongst this year's lineup of upstarts and young bucks.

In starker perspective, 2023's season opener Parker McCollum was just an eight-year-old in the Conroe area when Chesney debuted next door at the Dome in 2001.

Chesney stepped out to beachy, upbeat tunes like "Beer in Mexico."Kenny Chesney RodeoHouston 2023 Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo

The easy brush to paint 54-year-old Chesney with is the "Jimmy Buffett in Bedazzled Jeans." Dive into his discography, and you find devastatingly heartfelt passages hidden next to the "gulf and western" pirate anthems about chasing rum on a weekday and running romantically aground. Living for the night but always dreading the next day's inevitable hangover.Chesney

On Wednesday night, Chesney jumped out of his Ford chariot and returned to the RodeoHouston stage, offering us a "Beer In Mexico" from 2005's The Road and the Radio, with his sturdy touring band locked in the pocket for a hits set.

One of Chesney's secret weapons live has long been having an arena rock-ready touring band. Fans had complained that last weekend's top act, the Turnpike Troubadours, had been plagued with sound issues, but Chesney's road-tested was born and raised on stages bigger than even this one.

The flirtatiously reggae "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven" would perfectly fit into a custom Spotify 'This is RodeoHouston' playlist, along with "Somewhere With You" and its chiming arena-tonk vocals.

"When the Sun Goes Down" was a stark reminder that Chesney was one of the more cheerful solo acts on the rodeo bill this season. He's happier bounding across the stage with an imaginary drink in his hand like a motivational speaker on a booze cruise. It also made for a longer setlist than most.

"Tonight they told me that this night was my ninth night playing the Houston rodeo," Chesney said from the stage, mentioning his vast collection of HLSR belt buckles, gifts from each headlining set. "We hope to make it to ten real soon."

We've not seen the last invasion of No Shoes Nation at RodeoHouston, not with the Gulf Of Mexico this close by. Hoist that rum-soaked flag — and pass the SPF 100.

Setlist

Beer In Mexico

Reality

Til It's Gone

Here And Now

Summertime

Everybody Wants to Go To Heaven

Somewhere With You

I Go Back

Get Along

When The Sun Goes Down

All the Pretty Girls

Living in Fast Forward

Young

American Kids

Setting The World On Fire

Don’t Happen Twice

Movie Review

Denzel Washington brings new spectacle to the Colosseum in Gladiator II

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II.

There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.

The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).

Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.

Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.

Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.

The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.

Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.

Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.

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Gladiator II opens in theaters on November 22.

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