ZZ Top Blows The Roof Off Ravinia With Timeless Chops & Uncanny Swagger!

Southern rockers Blackberry Smoke is pretty darn good band in their own respect.

Catchy songs, fine lyrics and excellent musicianship, made them an ideal choice as opening act for Hall of Fame rocker’s ZZ Top.
Blackberry Smoke even pulled a surprise “Ace” out of their bag of tricks, surprising the Ravinia audience with a respectable cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Your Time Is Gonna Come,” that had the crowd pretty excited.

Their brand of southern rock definitely has its place within the scope of today’s rock n’ roll genre’s. However, had Blackberry Smoke been around during the mid-late 70’s-think Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers, etc, they’d probably be considered a super-group. Southern rock peaked during that era, so though many might view Blackberry Smoke as a bit of a “throw-back,” their songs are refreshingly good.
While enjoying Blackberry Smoke’s opening act, the thought occurred to me that ZZ Top displayed major guts choosing a young, up and coming group of southern rockers to proceed them.

That is, until ZZ Top casually strolled onto the stage to their crazy-cool film intro replete with hot chicks, hot, retro-antique auto’s from the 40’s and 50’s and more flash, cash and stash than the crowd had witnessed in quite some time.

As soon as leader Billy Gibbons launched into “Got Me Under Pressure” it was abundantly clear that Blackberry Smoke was a mere appetizer that just got vaporized by ZZ’s crunchy power chords. Not sure what “Fountain of Youth” Gibbons, Beard and Hill are sipping from, but the good ole Tejas boys sounded as fresh as they did (dare we say it? Sure, why not? Gibbons did): 45 year’s ago!

Gibbon’s is without peer when it comes to rocked up blues chops. He’s a guitar virtuoso who blindfolded could mop up the floor with the lion’s share of Rolling Stone Magazine’s choices for Top 50 Guitarist’s of All-Time.
Put simply: Billy Gibbon’s strutted around the stage and kicked serious ass.

The beauty of ZZ Top is their tongue in cheek ability to not take themselves seriously or anything else for that matter. Yes, the trademark beards, synchronized stage moves and fuzzy guitars are fun and visually compelling, but don’t believe for one minute that while these visuals are entertaining, ZZ Top is easily one of the tightest rock bands of all-time.

Songs 2 and 3 combined “Waiting For The Bus,” which segued perfectly into “Jesus Just Left Chicago,” which brought the lively Thursday evening Ravinia audience to its feet. Every time Gibbon’s referenced Chicago (which he did quite often-the dude’s smart), the crowd went wild.
GIbbons and company clearly showed a soft-spot for Chicago, judging by many of their comments throughout the concert, acknowledging that Chicago is home to the Blues, paying major props to our city.

From “Gimme All Your Lovin’” to “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” ZZ Top had the packed Ravinia house eating out of their hand. Toggling between Gibbons and Dusty Hill, it’s obvious that these twin rockers are in lockstep on multiple levels.
It would be difficult to even imagine one without the other, as they’re synergistically so congruent with one another.

Drummer Frank Beard (ironically missing a beard), was a virtual workhorse holding the bottom together with his uncanny timing and tasty fills.
Another super-cool surprise was ZZ’s tribute to the late, great, Jimi Hendrix with a cover rendition of “Foxy Lady” that once again had the crowd in a complete frenzy, while joining in on the chorus that Gibbons led.

ZZ Top has to be the most satisfying rock concert of the summer thus far. While to date, every concert has been outstanding this summer, ZZ Top proved to be the most effective at getting the audience’s “rocks off” so to speak, while adding just enough surprises and musical treats to still leave their fans wanting more.

With a tasteful amount of props (think “Cheap Sunglasses), the requisite sexy video’s, (Hot shadows of chicks dancing) and the above referenced fuzzy guitars and later, the flashy jackets, ZZ Top is fun to watch and a pleasure to listen to.
Once again, Ravinia turned out a versatile audience of diverse ages, so all demographics went straight to Hell with ZZ Top on the house. From Teen on up, everyone enjoyed the hard-rockin’ Texas band.

“My Head’s In Mississippi” had the audience dancing in the aisles and transitioning perfectly into “Sharp Dressed Man” keeping the crowd on their feet through the encore.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, Gibbons, Hill and Beard launched into “Legs.”
Both “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs” featured ZZ Tops 80’s videos in the background, along with a great light show.

The encore began with a blistering, long-player version of La Grange/Sloppy Drunk Jam with Beard’s tight drum fills and Gibbons and Beard playing off one another with extraordinary precision. During the majority of the show, Gibbons and Hill played beat up, old red Fender Telecasters that would have made Leslie West (Of legendary 60’s band Mountain) blush. West was famous for recording “Mississippi Queen” on an old Sears Teisco Guitar!

For the encore however, Gibbons and Hill came out with dark, cherry Gibson SG’s while killing it on “Tush” with Hill leading the way with silky smooth vocals.
For the final encore, Top crushed it by reaching into the way-back machine of their roots with a booming version of Merle Travis’s “Sixteen Tons,” once again underscoring the unpredictability of a ZZ Top set list-Wow!
ZZ Top moves up to the top of the live music chart for 2015 with Thursday’s stellar performance.

Photos by: Tony Wasemann
Upcoming: Santana, this Sunday, August 30, 2015.
To purchase tickets and for more information, go to: www.ravinia.org