Concert News

Dozens of Houston summer concert tickets go on sale for $30

Weird Al is one of dozens of artists with discount tickets.

Photo courtesy of Weird Al Yankovic

In what has become an annual summer tradition, concert promoter Live Nation is offering a discount ticket program for summer concert season, with $30 tickets for a variety of shows at venues across Texas.

Live Nation’s $30 Ticket to Summer is selling tickets for $30 to more than 1,000 shows at select amphitheaters across the U.S. and Canada throughout the season, including The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion at The Woodlands in Houston, Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas, The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Germania Insurance Amphitheater, Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park, and Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater in Austin.

The initial on-sale begins May 21, and spans a wide range of genres — including pop, Latin, hip-hop, country, R&B, rock, metal, electronic, comedy, and more.

Tickets purchased through this offer include all fees upfront in the $30 cost. Any taxes will be added at checkout as applicable to each city, state, and venue. Tickets are available for select Live Nation shows, while inventory lasts.

How $30 Ticket to Summer works
Starting May 21, in the U.S. and Canada, fans can visit LiveNation.com/TickettoSummer to see the full list of participating events. Once they’ve selected a show, they should look for the ticket type labeled “$30 Ticket to Summer,” add the ticket(s) to their cart, and proceed to checkout.

How to find participating shows
Fans can filter their search on LiveNation.com/TickettoSummer by participating events, venues, or artists. While on the website, fans can also set the location to the closest city and the site will refresh to only include participating shows nearby.

How to buy tickets
The general onsale will begin Wednesday, May 21 at 10 am local time while supplies last at LiveNation.com/TickettoSummer. ($30 Ticket to Summer will be available with T-Mobile and Rakuten early access beginning Tuesday, May 20.)

Here are the cities, venues, and shows where the $30 action is happening.

Houston
The $30 Ticket to Summer offer is available for the following shows at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion at The Woodlands:

Simple Minds
Styx with The Kevin Cronin Band and Don Felder
Summer of Loud
Outlaw Music Festival with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan
Kesha
Rick Springfield
Kansas
Russ
Weird Al Yankovic
Big Time Rush
The Offspring
Kidz Bop Live
Leon Bridges
Charlie Wilson
Keith Urban
Alice Cooper and Judas Priest

Dallas
The $30 Ticket to Summer offer is available for the following shows at Dos Equis Pavilion:

Halsey
97.1 The Eagle’s BFD with Chevelle, Marilyn Manson
Dierks Bentley
Luke Bryan
Summer of Loud with Beartooth, I Prevail
Stick Figure
Outlaw Music Festival with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan
Kesha
Parker McCollum
Jason Aldean
Juntos
Big Time Rush
The Offspring
Pantera
Nelly

Irving
The $30 Ticket to Summer offer is available for the following shows at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory:

Hauser of 2Cellos
Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas
Simple Minds
Bini
Babymetal
Tash Sultana
The Driver Era
ALT 103.7 Presents Slightly Stoopid
Kansas
97.1 The Eagle Presents Volbeat
Billy Currington & Kip Moore
Xdinary Heroes
Collective Soul and +LIVE+
Lost 80's Live Ft. A Flock of Seagulls, Big Country
Toto with Christopher Cross & Men at Work
The Flaming Lips & Modest Mouse
KIDZ BOP Live
Simple Plan
Coheed and Cambria
Gavin Adcock
Myke Towers
Alabama Shakes
Eden Munoz
John Legend

Austin
The $30 Ticket to Summer offer is available for the following shows at Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater

Drive-By Truckers
Tennis
Thievery Corporation
The Hives
Die Spitz
Matt Maltese

The $30 Ticket to Summer offer is available for the following shows at Germania Insurance Amphitheater

Styx with The Kevin Cronin Band and Don Felder
Summer of Loud
Stick Figure
Willie Nelson's 4th of July Picnic and Fireworks
Russ
+Live+ with Collective Soul
The Offspring
Pantera
Alice Cooper and Judas Priest

The $30 Ticket to Summer offer is available for the following shows at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park:

Peach Pit & Briston Maroney
Blue October
Slightly Stoopid
Billy Currington
Pixies
Coheed and Cambria
Father John Misty
Lake Street Dive

More tickets will be added throughout the summer, for chances to score $30 tickets all season long.

concerts

Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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