ZZ Top are legendary Rock’n’roll royalty from Texas and their Elevation Tour is a celebration of well over fifty years of music.
They stretch back to the mid-sixties when original guitarist Billy Gibbons was first hitting his stride in a band called the Moving Sidewalks.
Late in ’69 this one disbanded and the classic line-up morphed into the distinctive Southern Boogie Blues of ZZ Top with Frank Beard and Dusty Hill.
Hill passed away in 2021, making them the longest running rock’n’roll band with an unchanged line-up, in history. His long-serving guitar tech Elwood Francis was specifically chosen by Hill to take the bass guitar mantle.
Original drummer Frank Beard was too ill to tour this time. John Douglas leads the assault on the skins for this tour.
They don’t need a fanfare. There is an instant cheer of recognition as the three stride out, dwarfed on the big Arena stage.
Signature long beards from guitar and bass, I suspect Francis may have his augmented.
Step out to You Got Me Under Pressure. Francis carries an outlandish yellow 17 (!) string bass, reminding me of Pat Metheny’s Picasso guitar monster he starts his shows with. Francis appears to only use the bottom four strings.
Immediately the drums are authoritative and lock into the meshed engine room throb and rumble bass which powers the music for the entire set.
Gibbons puts out his scything, dirty, greasy signature sound which reaches into all manner of Blues and R’n’B history. A monster mash of continually sparking firepower. Like his guitar is a vintage Nascar.
Both Gibbons and Francis wear Nudie suit styled sequinned outfits. They do their minimalist syncopated dance routines.
Makes sense when their following song is a cover of Sam and Dave’s I Thank You. The original Soul Men’s style is blown up into a menacing Rock’n’roll number.
ZZ Top tip their hats to the original chitlin circuit and the Soul Revue styles which came later.
Pearl Necklace. Bass guitar carries a large part of the melody. Guitar eventually rides over the top and electrifies.
My Heads in Mississippi. Muddy Waters styled guitar licks as the momentum slowly builds. The guitar weeps and moans and eventually climbs over everything.
I Gotsa Get Paid is off their last original album La Futura (2012). Produced by Rick Rubin, which makes it essential listening, the song is adapted from 25 Lighters, by rappers and Texas DJ DMD. Still sounds like classic ZZ Top.
16 Tons, a cover of Merle Travis, sounds downright nasty and ornery.
Legs get a huge crowd cheer. Somewhere in the sound mix we hear electronic synth and keyboard effects.
George Thorogood and the Destroyers are certainly not just here for the ride. They are co- headliners in their own right.
Thorogood has been here many times and I possibly did see them when they first came out in 1981. Was it the Auckland Town Hall?
At times I have thought he’s a cartoon version of Blues-based Rock. What that really means is that he plays unpretentious stripped back and powerful music like the Ramones classic first four albums.
The band do stretch out often, but always with that direct, honed meshed guitar attack.
Drummer Jeff Simon there from the start, as is bass guitar Billy Blough. Later members Jim Suhler guitar, and Buddy Leach saxophone, who you can hear after the sound desk adjust the mix.
Rock Party is a surprise. Great Rockabilly which sounds like Jerry Lee going wild at Sun studios.
Of course, he loves the Diddley beat with Who Do You Love and the drums thunder and do their best to level the auditorium.
Pays homage to John Lee Hooker like he has always done. We get our fill with House Rent Boogie/ One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer. The band extend out and the singer gets a little wild and starts to sound the Hasil Adkins.
This is the Cramps domain of nasty and edgy Rock’n’roll.
The band have fun on Get a Haircut. When he’s not sleeping all day, he’s listening to records. Lots of guitar licks but it has a Country cadence and I’m sure there is a saxophone mysteriously in the mix.
The band just steamroll through Hank Williams Move It On Over.
Van Morrison’s Gloria gets the Diddley Garage Punk treatment.
Bad To The Bone is the anticipated favourite, and the audience laps it up.
ZZ Top do the encore dance and come back for a triple header. They have changed their outfits though.
Go back to their debut album of 1971 and play Brown Sugar. Not the Stones song but it would have come out at the same time. This is pure Muddy Water’s style Blues, sounding like Mannish Boy as they extend out.
Tube Snake Boogie is satisfyingly lecherous. I got a girl she lives o the hill/ She won’t do it, but her sister will.
Finish with La Grange and in good juxtaposition with the Delaware Destroyers, they take it out with a John Lee Hooker homage. The howl and the growl. Work this Stomp Blues up to rattle the marrow in your bones.
Both ZZ Top and George Thorogood and the Destroyers remind us why this is classic timeless music.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Chris Zwaagdyk
ZZ Top
George Thorogood and the Destroyers
