ZZ Top Announce 50th Anniversary Tour

ZZ Top will hit the road this summer to celebrate 50 years as a band. The bearded ones will be joined by Cheap Trick and Lynyrd Skynyrd. 

I saw ZZ Top when they headlined Rocklahoma many years ago. I have to say it was not the best concert I've ever attended. Now it was late and I was hot and tired and but still. I felt the energy was lacking that night. This run will probably be better. 

Here are the dates:

ZZ Top - The Complete Studio Albums (10CD)

Aug. 16 - Ridgefield, WA - Sunlight Supply Amphitheatre 
Aug. 17 - Airway Heights, WA - Northern Quest Casino Theater 
Aug. 20 - Yakima, WA - Yakima Valley SunDome 
Aug. 21 - Woodinville, WA - Chateau Ste. Michelle
Aug. 23 - Irvine, CA - FivePoint Amphitheatre 
Aug. 24 - Concord, CA - Concord Pavilion
Aug. 25 - Paso Robles, CA - Vina Robles Amphitheatre 
Aug. 27 - Santa Barbara, CA - Arlington Theater 
Aug. 28 - San Diego, CA - Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre 
Aug. 29 - Phoenix, AZ - Comerica Theatre 
Sep. 01 - Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theatre 
Sep. 04 - Milwaukee, WI - BMO Harris Pavilion" 
Sep. 06 - Maryland Heights, MO - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre 
Sep. 07 - Tinley Park, IL - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Sep. 08 - Sterling Heights, MI-Michigan Lottery Amphitheater 
Sep. 10 - Huber Heights, OH - Rose Music Center at The Heights 
Sep. 11 - Burgettstown, PA - KeyBank Pavilion
Sep. 13 - Ocean City, MD - Ocean City BikeFest 
Sep. 14 - Gilford, NH - Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion
Sep. 18 - Boston, MA - Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion
Sep. 19 - Wamtagh. NY - Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater 
Sep. 21 - Cleveland, OH - Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica
Sep. 22 - Louisville, KY - Champions Park 
Oct. 05 - Raleigh, NC - Coastal Credit Union Music Park 
Oct. 06 - Charlotte, NC - PNC Music Pavilion
Oct. 09 - Charleston, SC - Volvo Cars Stadium
Oct. 11 - Cherokee, NC - Harrah’s Cherokee - Event Center
Oct. 12 - Manchester, TN - Exit 111 Festival 
Oct. 13 - Alpharetta, GA - Verizon Amphitheatre
Oct. 15 - Augusta, GA - The James Brown Arena
Oct. 16 - St. Augustine, FL - St. Augustine Amphitheatre 
Oct. 18 - Estero FL - Hertz Arena
Oct. 19 - Tampa, FL - MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre
Oct. 20 - West Palm Beach, FL - Coral Sky Amphitheatre

Comments

[Bob]

Saw ZZ top at the Philadelphia spectrum in April of 1980. I still have the ticket stub. the opening band was a great band out of Michigan called the Rockets, and the ticket cost $7.50. this was in the pre-MTV days, so they still really brought the blues hard. Played their asses off that night. Saw them in Philly again in 1986 on a double bill with george Thorogood. Not nearly as good because they were into the MTV synth rock thing. then, caught them a third time in San Diego around 2000 with what was left of Lynyrd Skynyrd. I'll definitely catch their san Diego date as that open air theatre they're playing at is literally a ten-minute walk from my job. Should be fun! I hope we get cheap trick instead of Skynyrd. Saw Cheap Trick about eight times at Great Adventure in jackson, NJ. they always tore it up, so it would be great to ssee them again.

[stu]

being from TX i know it’s wrong to say this, but i just can’t pay the big bucks to see zz top any more. it’s the same show each year and very stale. they’re playing here in may (with cheap trick and bad company) and i’m skipping it for a festival with zebra, quiet riot & ratt (for 2/3 the price).

[Shawn]

ZZ Top one great blues band. Better seen in the smallest venue possible. If your expecting pyro and a high energy stage performance forget it... These guys barely move on stage but if they are on they will tear your head off. Skynyrd should hang it up but I think they support a family the size of Florida so the road keeps calling. I miss Billy, Allan, Leon, Ed, and of course Ronnie - Gary can't carry on forever. Put Artimus back behind the drums and get that kid from Shinedown to sing and I would enjoy that.

[Bkallday]

Hell yeah! Ive never seen ZZ, unfortunately. May hafta take care of that in September. Btw, I saw Skynyrd back in November, and they kicked ultra ass.

[steverox]

Any Rock n Roll lover should see ZZ Top at least once in their life. I was lucky enough to see them in a small venue in Holland a few years ago with my dad ... the last show I ever went to with my dad before he passed. It was his lifelong dream to see ZZ Top perform, and they did not disappoint. Their Backdoor Medley off Fandango is off the charts! Mellow down easy baby!

[Metalboy!]

Speaking of “Fandango”, Steverox, I wish I had seen them on that tour. The live side of that album absolutely scorches including “Backdoor Medley” but it’s that sides opener, the same song they opened their shows with back in ‘75, a roaring version of The Nightcaps tune, “Thunderbird” that takes the cake for me.

I was fortunate to see them three times, and three’s a charm because that third and last time was at Madison Square Garden in January 1991, where I was seated POINT BLANK, front and center, in the fourth row (my then girlfriend’s brother was a big time record producer who did some horse trading to get the tickets).

The show was insanely over the top with laser halograms and a dozen chicks’ pairs of legs (during the song “Legs”) poking out from an incredibly large stage set that appeared to be a junkyard pile of cars which also had Frank Beard’s massive drum set embedded into it.

I was so close that the chicks who those legs belonged to were all seated in front of me in their Daisy Dukes, cowgirl shirt halter tops and ten gallon hats. Right before they went on to perform their “dance”, the one right in front of me (I was seated in the center aisle) got alerted from a walkie-talkie I didn’t realize she was holding that it was time for them to go on.

Needless to say, my old girlfriend (well, she was 25) shot me a look I’ll never forget as I stared at those Daisy Dukes twitch their way toward the stage. “You like that, huh?”, she said to me with an all too knowing Mona Lisaesque smirk.

Alas, a guy I know who works at a famous record store, “Rock & Roll Heaven” in Orlando, lamented to me years ago ZZ Top’s problem — They have slowed down over recent years, meaning they literally just don’t play as fast as they used to as was captured on that live side or even up to the early 90’s.

Still, as Steverox mentions, “Any Rock n’ Roll lover should see ZZ Top at least once in their lifetime.” The fact they’re still the original line-up (like Cheap Trick) makes that once in a lifetime opportunity now!

p.s. Another time I saw them was when Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill sauntered right past me, walking down the sidewalk on Houston Street in downtown NYC on a deserted block just off the corner of Hudson Street as I walked back from lunch toward the office building where I worked. They both were wearing black designer lapeless motorcycle jackets and, of course, those super long signature matching beards. I’m guessing they were heading away from that office building, which also houses Hachette, who owns Hyperion Books, the publisher of ZZ Top’s 1994 authorized biography, “Sharp Dressed Men”. I’m assuming they were grinning from ear to ear as they stared st me for two reasons ... (1) Since I had “In Through The Outdoor” era Robert Plant hair they probably knew I recognized them and (2) They had just cut the book deal. Oddly, neither of them were wearing any sunglasses.

[Badland]

Date:
October 20, 1990
Venue:
Cotton Bowl
Location:
Dallas, TX
ZZ Top, Steve Miller, Santana
Sat, October 20, 1990, Cotton Bowl, Dallas, TX

Setlists
ZZ Top setlist:
Planet of Women
Sleeping Bag
Tell It
Waitin' for the Bus
Jesus Just Left Chicago
Ten Foot Pole
Gimme All Your Lovin'
Concrete and Steel
My Head's in Mississippi
Manic Mechanic
Heard It on the X
2000 Blues
Blue Jean Blues
Just Got Paid
Lovething
Got Me Under Pressure
Sharp Dressed Man
Give It Up
Cheap Sunglasses
Legs
Tube Snake Boogie
La Grange
Tush
Steve Miller Band setlist:
Swingtown
True Fine Love
Mercury Blues
Living in the U.S.A.
Wild Mountain Honey
Serenade
Take the Money and Run
Abracadabra
Threshold
Jet Airliner
Rock'n Me
The Joker
Santana setlist:
Soul Sacrifice
Peace on Earth ... Mother Earth ... Third Stone From the Sun
Somewhere in Heaven
Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen
Oye como va
Jin-go-lo-ba
Toussaint L'Ouverture

[Bkallday]

Holy crap, badland. Those are epic setlists for those bands! Did u see that show?!?!

[Metalboy!]

Thanks for the lists, Badland!

What a concert!

And ZZ Top still played fast!

No “Thunderbird”, though. Unfortunately, ZZ Top has never paid a dime for performing The Nightcaps song as the copyright had expired. So much for preserving The Blues, Billy!

[Badland]

Yes that was one of the times i saw them. You cant be from Texas and not see ZZ Top lol

[Bkallday]

That’s awesome, Badland. Btw, Thunderbird is one of their worst songs, imho.

[Metalboy!]

Tarnation, BK! And, IMHO, “Thunderbird” is a totally BAD*SS barnstormer they opened with in ‘75 as captured on the live side of “Fandango”.

FYI, I didn’t know ZZ Top had a bad song. Please enlighten me of others you feel are their, and I quote, “worst songs”. Maybe Gibbons will read it and send some boys from Houston to come lookin’ for you courtesy of that ‘Lil Ol’ Band From Texas”!

[Bob]

Metalboy!, my good sir, if you're still monitoring this thread, I'd be interested to hear would you thought of ZZ Top's almost complete re-inventing of their sound and image once MTV got big. Personally, I felt really let down by their transformation into grooveless synth rock. Frank Beard's swinging Texas drum grooves with all of those beautiful ghost notes on the snare were replaced by really rigid, almost machine-like rhythms, and Dusty's bass parts were reduced to simply vamping on the root note for 3 1/2 minutes. I know their videos and their new image made them stars, but for a blind guy like me who had been following them since about '74, who couldn't see their flashy new appearance, all I heard was a severe dropoff in the quality of their music. the final slap in the face was that "six Pack" release of their old albums where they dubbed in really bad drum triggers and put a bunch of reverb on the vocals to try to "modernize" the sound of their old albums. What was your take, sir? Would also be interested to hear from anyone else who remembers 70's ZZ top.

[Metalboy!]

Honestly, Bob, I thought it was genius!

Take “Gimme All Your Lovin’” for example. All that slickness and sheen made for a fresh, humorous and bad*ss Molotov cocktail of Blues, Pop, 80’s Hard Rock AND Metal. What a guitar chorkfest if there ever was one!

In the words of Billy Gibbons, “It’s gotta have crunch.” and their music always did and always will.