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

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Movie Review

Dakota Fanning-led The Sun Never Sets needs more direction

Photo courtesy of Independent Film Company

Dakota Fanning in The Sun Never Sets.

The movies of writer/director Joe Swanberg have always been an acquired taste, as he prefers to give his actors a loose framework of a story and let them improvise most of their lines to give the films a more natural feel. Sometimes that approach can yield great results, and sometimes — as in The Sun Never Sets — it can result in addled and maddening storytelling.

Wendy (Dakota Fanning) is in her early 30s and at a crossroads in her life. When a friend announces she’s pregnant, she starts to re-evaluate what she wants, including her two-year relationship with the older Jack (Jake Johnson). Although they love each other, their disagreements on having more children and extracurricular activities call their long-term viability into question.

Jack, not wanting Wendy to settle, encourages her to explore her options where they live — Anchorage, Alaska — telling her he’ll be waiting should she strike out. What he doesn’t expect is that Wendy’s ex-boyfriend, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), has returned to the city, giving her an attractive alternative. The three engage in a love triangle that proves frustrating and confusing for both the participants and the viewers.

What works best about the film is its location in Alaska, which rarely gets showcased in movies, and even more rarely in the way it is here. The story takes place in warmer months, and Swanberg gives his characters multiple opportunities to be outside, showing off Anchorage’s harbor, surrounding mountains, and seemingly vibrant city life. The subtle but effective way Swanberg frames various scenes makes the landscape enormously appealing.

It’s too bad, then, that the story never measures up to its surroundings. Too often Fanning, Johnson, Smith, and others seem to be grasping for their next line, unsure of what they want their character to do or say next. That lets their scenes mimic real conversations, but you might not realize how much you want scripted dialogue until you see actors trying to come up with their own in the moment.

The larger issue is that there’s no consistency from scene to scene about where the plot is heading. The characters of Wendy, Jack, and Chuck are extremely wishy-washy about their desires, with each of them vacillating back-and-forth in just how much they want to be with each other. Depending on your experience, this may or may not be true to life, but watching it is excruciating and not enjoyable or romantic in the slightest.

As actors, Fanning, Johnson, and Smith are talented and interesting, with each capable of connecting with viewers in different ways. But working in improvisation is a different beast, and only Johnson — who has worked with Swanberg multiple times — seems truly at home. A few others, like Debby Ryan and Anna Konkle, do well in the format and maybe deserved bigger parts.

Swanberg has proven in the past that his method of filmmaking can be insightful and entertaining, but that is not the case here. In The Sun Never Sets, his hands-off approach is a detriment to the flow of the film and the story as a whole, resulting in an experience that is far from what most viewers will want to go through.

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The Sun Never Sets is now playing in select theaters.

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