ZZ Top

Manchester Apollo

Tuesday 25 June 2013

I have seen ZZ Top before (see link, 31.10.12) so there's no point going into the background - suffice to say, good old Southern Rock, every guitar lick veritably oozing the taste and aroma of fried chicken!

I was somewhat lucky to get to this concert because I dillied and dallied when the tickets were announced, and when I finally got round to looking at the website on the Sunday, they had sold out. It hadn't been because I had been debating whether to go - it was because I had simply messed about, forgotten, and then it was too late. I very much regretted my inaction, put it down to experience, but checked every day to see if new tickets had been released - but no luck for a long time. I was doubly frustrated when I bought their new album "La Futura" after reading rave reviews - yes it really was a return to form, and I was even more miffed. I eventually got a ticket when some extra standing tickets were announced - this time I moved instantaneously, booking the ticket before I left for work. The price I paid was that I had to stand up at the concert, which was a very mixed blessing. The obvious drawback is that I'm on the cusp of being too old, knackered and unfit for doing such things and I felt very stiff and had severe pains at the end - starting to walk was quite painful. On the other hand though I was much more intimately placed, quite near the front with an excellent view - though I had to keep dodging round to get out of the way of whoever moved in front of me!

The concert was at the same time one of the worst, and one of the best, of all time.

The "worst" is easy to sum up - coming on stage at 21:00 on the dot, and finishing at 22:15, is bordering on being insulting to the public in these harsh days of austerity, who have had to pay through the nose with their hard earned income for the tickets. I can't remember their length of performance last time (apart from the fact that they came on very late), but a cursory look at the length of their albums will clearly show that "putting the hours in" is not something they are keen on - fantastic as it is, the new album is not much longer than thirty minutes long, which is pretty reprehensible these days. Maybe it is because they are very old, but whatever, it really does treat the audience with contempt, and good as their performance otherwise was, I feel that the loud boos at the end were thoroughly well deserved. A saving grace was that it brought an early end to my "standing torture": I was struggling and I'm not at all sure that I could have survived intact another half an hour, or god forbid, another full hour!

Now on to the "good" - and despite the short length of the concert, there was plenty of it. Most of all, the sound quality was just perfect, amongst the best that I have experienced at concerts, being of exceptional, hifi standard quality. It wasn't the loudest by any means, but it didn't have to be - when you could very clearly hear each instrument very sharply and fully, there was no need for it to be too loud, it was perfectly satisfying as it was.

Allied to the perfect sound quality was the perfect musicianship - the two were symbiotic on each other in that regard. Each note of each instrument could be heard perfectly, and when it was played as well as this, it was damned near heavenly! There were no extended solos, which was a shame, given the sound quality on offer, but there were plenty of guitar licks from Billy Gibbons, and, as said, hearing every note made it the most heavenly guitar playing you could imagine. The drumming from Frank Beard was not exactly energetic, but it was in time, ultra precise and the sound of the thrash was perfect - all to the good, because despite being the only one not to have a beard, he looked even more ancient than the other two and about to give out any minute! Not to be outdone, Dusty Hill's bass came through loud and clear - it wasn't loud enough to hit you in the chest, but it wasn't muffled or distorted, and it made a great change to be able to clearly hear every note.

The choice of material couldn't be faulted either. Just about every famous ZZ Top track I could think of was played, spanning the gamut from the first album, right through to an excellent selection from La Futura. For most people the highlights would have been the "Eliminator" tracks - Sharp Dressed Man etc , but to me, the tribute to Jimi Hendrix "Foxey Lady" really made the evening. It could almost have been Hendrix playing, and the likeness of it to the surrounding material really brought into sharp focus the effect he had on his successors. As with Pail McCartney, I thought the tribute was such a nice touch, coming from someone who knew him - despite the fact that he's been dead for nearly forty years, he's quite plainly still one of the seminal influences in the rock world. Another nice touch, a bit more mundane, was in the track "Jesus Just Left Chicago".... where at one point, the words "Jesus Just Left Manchester" were substituted - of course, they will do this at every venue, the big challenge is to get it right - but it was a nice touch nonetheless and went down very well.

There was one bit of rebellion at the end, which I thought was quite sweet for someone so advanced in years, which was that an assistant came on stage and lit a cigarette for Billy Gibbons, who smoked it on stage. Of course, such a thing is totally illegal in these days of puritanical, H&S obsessed Stalinism - and I'm not actually in favour of smoking by any means, but I thought it was a wonderful way of sticking two fingers up to today's petty little Hitlers, and 1,000 percent in line with rock music's proud history of rebellion. The fact that it was probably an electronic cigarette and (presumably) still legal doesn't really matter a jot - it was a fine gesture, which was what counted.

Thus I had mixed emotions when I came out. The short time spent on stage was really poor form from the group - but when you get superlative playing, sound quality and material from a classic group like this, it seems churlish to worry overmuch about timings, and I certainly went away with a huge smile on my face - once I had withstood the pain and got my legs into gear that is! (01.07.13)

Got Me Under Pressure
Waiting' for the Bus
Jesus Just Left Chicago
Gimme All Your Lovin'
Pincushion
I Gotsta Get Paid
Flyin' High
Heartache in Blue
Certified Blues
Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix cover)
My Head's in Mississippi
Chartreuse
Sharp Dressed Man
Legs

Encore:

Tube Snake Boogie
La Grange / Sloppy Drunk / Bar-B-Q