Riley Green review

Country singer Riley Green kicks off RodeoHouston with Toby Keith tribute

Looking like a member of the Dutton clan that grew tired of the ranching business and got really into Toby Keith and duck hunting, Riley Green opened the 2026 edition of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Monday, March 2 in front of 59,250 attendees.

The Alabama native and former college football quarterback — because of course he was — strikes a starched jeans balance between the tender, woo-pitchin’ of guys like Merle Haggard and George Jones and the deep, blinding romance of neo-traditionalists Tracy Lawrence and fellow 2026 RodeoHouston performer Tim McGraw, with a cowboy hat resting over his epic flow.

Speaking of the Taylor Sheridan Television Universe (the TSTU), Green will soon be seen on the Sheridan-produced Yellowstone spin-off series Marshals, which premiered on CBS this past weekend, as a troubled former Navy SEAL.

The ACM New Male Artist of the Year for 2020, the 37-year-old didn’t get around to playing RodeoHouston until just last year. When Green isn’t in a recording studio, performing onstage, starting a duck hunting brand, or conspicuously vacationing with his shirt off in a tropical climate near other young country stars, he retreats to his farm or deep into a far-flung swamp on a hunting excursion. That being said, if I ever start a country punk band, I’m going to call it Riley Green’s Forearms, because they seem to attract audiences as much as his music.

Green’s show kicked off just after 9:20 pm with the man himself blowing into a duck call and launching into “Different ‘Round Here,” luckily out of earshot of any ducklings NRG Center potentially bedding down for the night.

“Hell Of A Way To Go” came with a mid-song disclaimer that it was his grandfather who was a fan of Alabama football, lest any alumni in the crowd get things twisted, before switching it to up Texas.

Green honored his mentor, Jamey Johnson, with a widescreen cover of the woolly singer-songwriter’s timeless “In Color”. Green’s earliest work was heavily influenced by Johnson, and the pair have become lasting friends.

He and fellow country star Ella Langley have become inexorably linked since their 2024 chart-topping duet "You Look Like You Love Me” like a nu-country Conway and Loretta. Sadly, there was no convertible riding out onto the rodeo dirt with Langley riding shotgun to jump into the duet, but the female audience members filled in admirably in her stead. "There Was This Girl," his gold-certified debut single, followed it up.

The late Toby Keith got some shine with a medley of his hits, including Green taking a turn at Keith’s 2002 anthem "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," which has earned something of a resurgence due to the USA hockey team singing it at the Winter Olympics.

Green slowed things down and took a break on a stool for “Jesus Saves” and “Don’t Mind If I Do,” showing off his solo acoustic chops.

The smoldering bedroom romp “Worst Way” got the biggest squeals of the night, with tall boys hoisted over cowboy hats, while his 2019 hit, "I Wish Grandpas Never Died" — the triple-platinum tribute to his late grandfathers, Lendon Bonds and Buford Green — brought the waterworks and a sea of smartphone flashlights through the stadium.

Green made his way out of the building with his band’s take on Alabama’s “Dixieland Delight,” jumping into a Ford pickup and into a few thousand fans’ dreams.

Setlist

Different ‘Round Here
Change My Mind
Hell of a Way To Go
In Color (Jamey Johnson cover)
You Look Like You Love Me
There Was This Girl
Toby Keith Tribute Set

I Should’ve Been A Cowboy
Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue

Jesus Saves
Don’t Mind If I Do
Worst Way
I Wish Grandpas Never Died
Bury Me in Dixie / Dixieland Delight

Courtesy of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Country singer Riley Green opened RodeoHouston on Monday, March 2.

rodeohouston concert review

Movie Review

New horror movie Faces of Death puts a modern twist on cult classic

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy — in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks — is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

---

Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

movies film