Zac Brown Band review

Zac Brown Band jam on hits and covers during polished RodeoHouston set

Spring break was in full effect this week on the NRG campus as amiable chamber of commerce weather blew through Houston. The grounds are experiencing a bit of an adrenaline hangover after this week’s run of Los Tigres Del Norte, Whiskey Myers, Bun B’s All-American Takeover, and Nickelback pulling in nearly 286,000 into NRG Stadium alone. Which makes the 70,095 people who showed up for tonight’s performance by Zac Brown Band seem relatively paltry.

We’ve talked a lot about attendance records lately in the modern rodeo era this week and the RodeoHouston website’s attendance logs are endlessly fascinating. Like, what happened in 2001 with only 1,382,183 people? Y’all had Destiny's Child, Diana Ross, Brooks & Dunn, and Duran Duran. According to a report at the time, low attendance was blamed on construction and traffic, presumably the construction of Reliant Stadium off Kirby and the METRORail taking shape off Fannin caused mild havoc.

It sounds awfully precious to say that the Zac Brown Band is the most jam band adjacent act that RodeoHouston will see, barring an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band which wouldn’t be too far-fetched if they stuck to compact versions of the hits. Full-scale Zac Brown Band shows are a much different beast, full of extended instrumental jams and even more adventurous covers in the mix. That’s not to say that ZBB shows at RodeoHouston are lacking, but the band on the open road with two and half hours or a venue curfew ahead of them as opposed to 45 minutes on the dirt are so very different.

Thursday night’s ZBB set started with a jaunty bluegrass-injected “Knee Deep” after the briefest of delays. Hey, there’s nine people in the band these days, including the recent induction of multi-instrumentalist Caroline Jones. She’s added another dimension to ZBB’s burlier output. “As She’s Walking Away” and its interlocking harmonies benefited the most from Jones’ touch.

The first cover of the night was the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” in southern-rock goth drag. The ZBB’s island-hopping “Toes” at one time had the band nearly-anointed as the next coming of Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band, that is until Kenny Chesney made a sandy heel turn and hit the beach.

“We wanna do one for the cowboys,” said Brown, clad in his best honky tonk bouncer garb, plucking his way into Garth Brooks’ “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)”. The ZBB has always excelled at being the affable jukebox band at RodeoHouston. It wasn’t too long ago that they covered Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post”, and Van Halen’s “Panama” in this same spot.

Brown welcomed country-blues guitar slinger Marcus King onstage to slather some stadium-sized slide guitar on top of “Colder Weather” which — naturally — transitioned into the Eagles’ “Take it The Limit”.

King himself has an highly-anticipated Rick Rubin-produced album dropping on April 5. The first singles show King leaning into Americana and lush R&B with a specific fervor. He would be a welcome addition to my dream RodeoHouston 2025 bill, which already features a three-hour Billy Strings Saturday afternoon matinee.

We’re heading into the RodeoHouston homestretch with the Jonas Brothers on Friday night, Brad Paisley on Saturday afternoon, and Eric Church sending us home on Sunday after brunch.

Setlist

Knee Deep
Keep Me in Mind
As She’s Walking Away
No Hurry
Paint It Black
Toes
Much Too Young To Feel This Damn Old
Free / Into The Mystic
Lovin You Is Easy
Homegrown
Same Boat
Colder Weather >> Take it To The Limit (with Marcus King)
America, The Beautiful >> Chicken Fried

Courtesy of the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo

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Movie Review

Fun visuals can't save The Magic Faraway Tree's meager plot

Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment

Andrew Garfield, Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Claire Foy, Phoenix Laroche, and Billie Gadson in The Magic Faraway Tree.

With kids and families always on the hunt for entertainment, it’s typically a safe bet for a movie studio to offer up something new, even if it is a film based on an old property. The Magic Faraway Tree, based on a series of books that started in the 1930s, is a very old property, one that its filmmakers have tried to liven up with a few stars, a lot of whimsy, and a boatload of CGI.

The Thompson family, led by stay-at-home dad Tim (Andrew Garfield) and breadwinner mom Polly (Claire Foy), are forced to move to a rundown country home when Polly gets laid off. The kids — Joe (Phoenix Laroche), Fran (Billie Gadson), and Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy) — are used to the perks of city life like wifi and electricity, and each of them rebels in their own way to their new lot in life.

Fran, enticed by a fairy named Silky (Nicola Coughlan), is the first to venture out of the house, making her way to a magic tree that transports her to a world full of strange characters like Moonface (Nonso Anozie), Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns), Dame Washalot (Jessica Gunning), and more. Her adventures there not only broaden the world she thought she knew, but may be the key to helping her ailing family.

Directed by Ben Gregor and written by Simon Farnaby (Paddington 2, Wonka), the film is a pleasant enough lark, but it fails to fully capture the imagination. The five-member family has a lot going on, from an initially-mute Fran to a domestic situation that raises more questions than it answers. The film tries to incorporate an anti-technology message through Tim’s hatred of a smart refrigerator (voiced by Judi Dench!) and the kids' addictions to devices, but it’s quickly shed in favor of other options.

Once Fran makes it to the Magic Faraway Tree, there’s a nice shift in the storytelling, but it’s unclear what the ultimate goal is. It’s a good idea to have Fran, the youngest of the children, convince her older, more cynical siblings about the virtues of the magic world, but the conflict in the real world doesn’t seem to rise to the level needed for the escape the tree provides.

There also seems to be a missing link in the storytelling for viewers to understand the importance of the fantastical characters. The visuals of seeing Moonface and his crescent moon-shaped hair, a man with a suit full of banging pots, and more are fun for a while, but not enough to carry the whole film. A last-minute revelation feels like it was something that should have been disclosed much earlier to help strengthen the emotions of the story.

A two-time Oscar nominee, Garfield is making his first foray into family movies (if you don’t count playing Spider-Man), and while he does a good job, he doesn’t make the best fit for the semi-goofy role. The same goes for the Emmy-winning Foy, who isn’t given much of anything to do. The movie puts the story on the shoulders of the three child actors, and while each of them acquit themselves well, none of them are so outstanding as to be noteworthy.

With nearly 90-year-old source material, The Magic Faraway Tree needed to be something truly special to stand out in the 21st century movie world. Unfortunately, it features a mostly forgettable story that features some fun visuals, a couple of cute kids, and not much else.

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The Magic Faraway Tree is now playing in theaters.

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