Lainey Wilson review

Yellowstone star Lainey Wilson enthralls at sold-out RodeoHouston debut

Lainey Wilson delivered a standout performance

Photo courtesy of the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo

The current reigning ‘Hillbilly Hippie’ queen of modern country-rock Lainey Wilson landed at RodeoHouston for a verified sold-out Saturday matinee.

Wilson’s fashion influence was evident when you entered the rodeo grounds, with spangly jackets, glittered bell-bottoms, and turkey feather-festooned cowboy hats ruling the day. The heavens, thankfully, blessed us with a fashion-friendly cool front overnight. Much like Kacey Musgraves’ defining appearance in 2019, Wilson’s audience was a multi-generational affair with moms and daughters decked out just like the headliner. These kinds of crowds are always affirming because no doubt this is someone’s first rodeo concert.

Wilson and Carly Pearce were the only female artists on this year’s RodeoHouston bill, a fact that has not gone unnoticed especially during Women’s History Month. There seems to be an unofficial two-female limit each year, and you’d have to go back to the 2011 season for the high water mark with six female-fronted acts on the lineup. You can likely pencil in Megan Moroney for 2025, and hopefully she’ll be joined by more than just one other fellow female.

The assertive “Tanya Tucker fronting AC/DC” vibes make Wilson a compelling artist to watch, but she’s far from an overnight success story. By the time she charted in 2021 with “Things A Man Oughta Know” the 31-year-old Nashville veteran had already written songs picked up by Thompson Square, Luke Combs, Ashley Cooke, and Flatland Cavalry. She won Entertainer of the Year at the 2023 CMA Awards and earlier this year took home the Best Country Album honors at the Grammys. Later this month, Wilson heads off to Australia to continue her hippie-billy domination.

Wilson’s reinterpretations of the universal themes in the female experience are resonating with fans. NRG Stadium was packed to the gills before the first bull gave an unlucky cowboy a concussion. She has endeared herself to the Spotify generation’s ears for namechecking Tacomas and Tecovas like any great urban cowgirl.

Lainey Wilson RodeoHouston Almost 75,000 attended Wilson's rodeo debut.Photo courtesy of the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo

Saturday afternoon’s thunderous strutter of an opener “Hold My Halo” set the tone, incredibly more metallic than it is on record. During “Hillbilly Hippie” the denim-dripped Wilson attacked each corner of the revolving stage’s five points like Bruce Dickinson. “Smell Like Smoke” had Wilson slinging a guitar and taking the NRG crowd out of the stadium and into a smoky Louisiana roadhouse. Anyone who came into Saturday’s show thinking Wilson was a shrinking pop star was set straight.

“Country’s Cool Again” is a modern reworking of Barbara Mandrell’s 1981 single “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool” which itself was a reaction to the early ‘80s fascination with twang in the wake of “Urban Cowboy”. Wilson closed “Watermelon Moonshine” with a few bars of “Strawberry Wine”, a winking homage to the last generation’s ode to underage drinking and memorable exploits. Country time is a flat circle, with artists reinterpreting the same feelings and experiences every few years.

“Y’all look more like Lainey Wilson than I look like Lainey Wilson,” an emotional Wilson said, recounting the last twelve months of her career. Playing the RodeoHouston stage is not a milestone that emerging artists take likely. On Thursday night Jelly Roll himself took a moment to soak in his own 70,000-plus crowd. It’s an affirmation of making it in an industry that only continues to grow colder and cutting.

On Saturday afternoon, a crowd of 74,940 people — this year’s biggest to date — were lucky enough to witness the birth of country music’s newest star. Naturally, she rode out of NRG Stadium on a horse, doing a victory lap around the stage.

Setlist

Hold My Halo
Hillbilly Hippie
Road Runner
Smell Like Smoke
Country’s Cool Again
Watermelon Moonshine > Strawberry Wine
Riders In the Sky > Wildflowers and Wild Horses
Attagirl
Things A Man Oughta Know
Wait In the Truck
Heart Like A Truck

celebrities lainey wilson rodeo rodeohouston concerts

Movie Review

How to Rob a Bank turns viral YouTube culture into messy crime caper

Photo by Megan Schoenbachler

Nicholas Hoult in How to Rob a Bank.

YouTube culture has made its way onto movie screens in a big way in 2026, with several content creators — most notably Kane Parson with Backrooms and Curry Barker with Obsession — making waves. So it’s only natural for movies to integrate the idea of YouTube content into their stories, as is the case in How to Rob a Bank.

The film throws the audience right into the action as Ryan (Nicholas Hoult), Emi (Anna Sawai), Vince (Pete Davidson), Hugo (Rhenzy Feliz), and other people wearing various animal masks commit their latest bank robbery, recording everything they do for their video channel. The hyper-stylized way in which they edit the videos is designed for maximum engagement, but also as a way to give the middle finger to authorities who have yet to catch them.

FBI Agent John West (John C. Reilly) is at a loss as to how to stop the group until he discovers an algorithm used by Reagan Gardner (Zoë Kravitz) that can comb social media and other things on the internet to triangulate anyone’s location. The cat-and-mouse game plays out as the criminal group tries to accomplish their mission of exposing banks and corporations for their corruption.

Directed by David Leitch (The Fall Guy) and written by Mark Bianculli, the film has a timely message that never quite lands. The rollicking nature of the robberies, their accompanying videos, and the fact that they give away some of the money to charity puts the audience on the side of the criminals. But when the film starts to delve into their maudlin personal stories, the shift in tones is jarring and not convincing.

Leitch and Bianculli also have difficulty figuring out how much to showcase certain characters. The robbers are composed of four main members, but there are at least two more of them who fade in and out of the story without explanation. Reagan is made to seem like an important character, but the technology she made is barely explained, and she too gets sidelined in a way that feels like the filmmakers left much of her story on the cutting room floor.

The filmmakers short circuit their own storytelling by trying to get the point too quickly. Instead of following the standard cops-and-robbers playbook that is unoriginal but still satisfying, they arrive at the usual end well before the movie finishes, and have to find ways to fill the time afterward. The film is much too long at 122 minutes, with much of the fun washed away by unnecessary digressions.

Hoult is a fine actor who should be a much bigger star by this point in his career. He’s convincing as the leader of this particular gang, but he never elevates the role. Reilly has his moments as an FBI agent, but he can’t seem to decide whether he wants to be serious or funny. Kravitz is not given much to do in her role, while Davidson is miscast in his. Lesser-knowns like Sawai and Feliz give good performances, but are overshadowed by the stars.

How to Rob a Bank works best when it leans into the anarchic nature of its main group, as the viral nature of the videos they create is solid commentary on both YouTube as a medium and the righteous anger many feel toward an unjust system. But Leitch and Bianculli can’t find a grip on the deeper parts of the story, leading to an up-and-mostly-down experience.

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How to Rob a Bank opens in theaters on November 13.

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