Live: ZZ TOP
August 28, 2005
Wicomico Civic Center
Salisbury, MD
By Fizz
Whoooo-EE! The little old Wicomico Civic Center is on the ball these days! It used to be, if we were lucky, they would have one rock show a year. And if we were REALLY lucky, it would be a rock show that might even be worth seeing. But in 2005, so far, we’ve had God Forbid, the Rock Never Stops tour (which I already reviewed for the Revenge), and now ZZ Top came rumbling into town. As your faithful Delmarva correspondent, I felt obliged to attend and report back to you. Of course, the second-row tickets I got for my birthday just two weeks before, bought off a guy who couldn’t attend? Those didn’t hurt either.
Good thing, too, because the show was sold out for weeks beforehand. Delmarva isn’t what you’d call a musically advanced area, as far as the types of concerts that roll through, and ZZ Top would be just the sort of show to pack ’em in. And sure enough, the parking lot was jammed tight with cars and people of all types heading in: teenagers, working-man types, old hippies, you name it.
I’ve always liked ZZ Top, even when I was a kid and considered classic rock to be impossibly lame. And the funny thing was, my dad liked ZZ Top too. He liked them a lot. He hated the vast majority of my music growing up, much preferring country, but whenever we’d be in the car, and he’d land on a ZZ Top song, he’d turn it up and jubilantly ask me if I knew who that was. Every time.
The band hit the stage shortly after 7:00, with a brief, pounding drum solo to let you know what was in store. The curtain rose (figuratively) on a backdrop like a checkered flag, like in auto racing, with black and silver squares. Frank Beard’s drums were made to look like the wheels of big trucks, while the amps resembled smokestacks. And out they came, our hoary, hellraising heroes, in matching lime-green jackets and guitars, plunging right into a charged-up rendition of “Got Me Under Pressure.”
From there, it was pretty much nonstop, through a 100-minute set of hits, a few semi-surprises, and a couple tunes from their most recent album, 2003’s Mescalero. With a catalog dating back to 1969, it would be impossible to include every single hit, but they sure tried, from the first album’s “Brown Sugar” on up through their colossal 1983 smash Eliminator and its four huge singles. After that, the band’s output has been somewhat inconsistent, and I’m sure nobody really minded that they didn’t play “Sleeping Bag” or “Doubleback” anyway.
Highlights for me were the inseparable “Waiting For the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago,” played slow and dirty; “Heard It On the X,” although it wasn’t quite as fast and frantic as the original; “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” with an especially blazing solo from Billy Gibbons; and the steady-rockin’ “Gimme All Your Lovin’.” Bassist Dusty Hill treated us to a thinly-disguised sex rap during the slow-burning blues of “Fool For Your Stockings,” with a perfect dirty-old-man leer. More lazy blues action showed up in “Mexican Blackbird.”
“Jewelry!” Dusty intoned at one point. Of course, we knew what was coming. “Jewelry! Come on, JEWELRY!” This little bit of word-association led into another four-minute sexual-innuendo of a song, “Pearl Necklace.” I wasn’t always the biggest fan of that particular song, but found myself quite enjoying it, as it seemed to have an extra bit of guitar crunch to it. A bit later, the three big Eliminator songs, (“Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp-Dressed Man” and “Legs”) appeared all in a row, flowing seamlessly from one into the next. It did occur to me to wonder if they might be getting a little electronic “help” on some of those higher vocal passages, though.
After “Legs,” the band left the stage briefly, only to return for an encore, this time with black guitars and jackets, and busting out a romping version of “Jailhouse Rock,” which shifted into that classic ode to whorehouses and endlessly repeating guitar riffs, “La Grange.” Another blistering solo here, although by that point, it was no surprise. Finally, the set wrapped up with the perennial favorite, “Tush.” If I’m not mistaken, they added another verse to the song.
I know some people will be shaking their heads and going “Eeeuuuwww, dinosaur rock!” And I suppose they’d be right. It didn’t matter to me. I don’t care if they’re 103, so long as the music was good. And anyway, ZZ Top have ALWAYS seemed like fossils to me, so it was no big deal. Dusty Hill looked a lot like Charlie Daniels, in fact, and incidentally, looked younger than Gibbons or Beard, who are actually younger than he is. Being the consummate professionals they are, they played flawlessly (possible vocal reinforcements notwithstanding) and executed their stage moves in perfect synchronicity, as though they’d been doing it every day of their lives. Which, come to think of it, they have. There were several guitar and jacket changes, from lime green to red to furry-white (guitars too) to black. Gibbons’s guitar sound was good, if not particularly distorted. There were times I thought he could’ve used a little more bite, but he pulled off all the tricks: the one-handed playing, the guitar-spinning and a plethora of hot blues licks, all as though it were the easiest thing in the world. Beard pounded away relentlessly, and Hill kept up a steady plunking on his bass. I’m not sure how many people knew the Mescalero material, and I myself only knew one song, and even that was because Gibbons announced it as such. The other two songs I didn’t recognize were both good, and the only real stinker in the set was their version of “Viva Las Vegas.” Why in the HELL did they play that, and leave out “Beer Drinkers and Hellraisers” or “Tube Snake Boogie?!”
All in all, it was an extremely solid and fun performance by three guys who obviously get along just fine together, even after 35 years of making music. It’s damn hard not to have a good time with this “little ol’ band from Texas,” who have always made it their top priority, and that of their fans’ to, as the song says, “enjoy and get it on.”
Rating: 8.0
Set List (I May have some of these mixed up slightly, but this is more or less accurate)
Got Me Under Pressure
?????
Waiting For The Bus
Jesus Just Left Chicago
Brown Sugar
Heard It On The X
I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide
Buck Nekkid
?????
Fool For Your Stockings
Cheap Sunglasses
Pearl Necklace
Mexican Blackbird
Viva Las Vegas
Gimme All Your Lovin’
Sharp Dressed Man
Legs
Encore:
Jailhouse Rock
La Grange
Tush
