LIVE: ZZ TOP with GEORGE THOROGOOD & THE DESTROYERS and DALLAS FRASCA – Perth, 1 May 2025

LIVE: ZZ TOP with GEORGE THOROGOOD & THE DESTROYERS and DALLAS FRASCA – Perth, 1 May 2025
Langley Park, Perth
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Linda Dunjey

ZZ Top remarkably stayed a tight trio for 51 years before Dusty Hill’s sad passing in 2021, and now drummer Frank Beard’s health problems have forced him to sit out this Australian tour. That leaves the king of style, the man with the golden tone, the right Reverend Billy F Gibbons as the sole remaining OG ZZ, a man whose presence is as unique and authentic as ever.

Joining Gibbons is Hill’s former bass tech Elwood Francis – all fright wig silver hair and a bass with so many strings it would make Cheap Trick’s Rick Neilsen think twice about picking it up – and Beard’s long term drum tech John Douglas. Promoting from within: we approve.

First though, we have Melbourne‘s Dallas Frasca, who is as feisty and gritty a singer and guitarist as her hair is pink. We‘d have preferred a real drummer than the basic drum backing track, this being a live show n’ all, but Frasca takes no prisoners on originals Anything Left To Wonder, River Queen and Let It Rain which are good enough that she shouldn’t have needed to finish with a superfluous Led Zeppelin montage. Regardless, consider the crowd warmed up.

George Thorogood – like Gibbons, 75 years young – is a born entertainer, a carny barker who talks up his show and has the goods to back up his schtick. How sweet it is, indeed.

Original Destroyers Jeff Simon and Billy Blough (original enough, he joined in 1976, three years after the band formed and over a year before their first album) are the tightest, most telepathic rhythm section you’re likely to hear, while additional guitarist Jim Suhler and sax player Buddy Leach hold their own in esteemed company.

Thorogood and ZZ did more than just about anyone else to bring the blues into the mainstream in the early 1980’s, even though both strayed from their purist beginnings in order to do so. Thorogood’s ability to cover blues classics in his and The Destroyer’s style was showcased with stomping renditions of Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love, John Lee Hooker’s One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer, and Hank Williams’ Move It On Over. Continuing the drinking theme, he does a shot before a raucous Gear Jammer, and I Drink Alone (hardly any wonder given the exorbitant bar prices) is almost as huge a classic as show highlight Bad To The Bone, while Get A Haircut And Get A Real Job strikes a chord with the rebels in the crowd. “I see you like the intellectual lyrics!” he jibes.

Thorogood always throws a “Thursday night rock party hootenanny” to be remembered, so it’s a shame security insist on forcing dancing revellers back into their seats throughout the show, restricting the rock n roll good times like crowd nazis in 1984 in Kevin Bacon’s movie Footloose.

When ZZ Top take the stage Gibbons and Francis are resplendent in glittery rhinestone festooned nudie suits and choreographed grooves, not to mention matching guitars when Francis gives his multi-stringed Frankenstein to his roadie. Their set is a tasty balance of their biggest and best, heavy on the 70’s blues classics and the 80’s synth-augmented smashes, mostly from breakthrough album Eliminator, with a couple of extras sprinkled in for good measure.

Gibbons is the walking embodiment of louche humour and effortless cool, but he’s happy to let the music do most of the talking, and to be fair every note he plays is unique, unmistakable and always sounds amazing, ever since his formative time tripping in Texan psych outfit The Moving Sidewalks.

Jesus Just Left Chicago, Gimme All Your Lovin, I’m Bad I’m Nationwide, more recent underground hit I Gotsta Get Paid, Just Got Paid and – complete with white, furry guitars (though these did not revolve, sadly) – Legs are all highlights.

They return for an encore sporting different suits, purple with leafy motifs and a thousand or so more diamantes each, playing guitars with video screens in them, and go right back to their First Album for Brown Sugar (no relation), then El Loco cult fave Tube Snake Boogie, and an awesome cherry on the cake in La Grange.

Crowd chatter seemed pretty unanimous that Thorogood’s party blues were favoured, but from where we stood both headliners hit a home run, their very different styles showcasing much of what we love about modern blues.

Set List: ZZ Top

Got Me Under Pressure
I Thank You
Waitin’ for the Bus
Jesus Just Left Chicago
Gimme All Your Lovin’
Pearl Necklace
I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide
I Gotsta Get Paid
My Head’s in Mississippi
Sixteen Tons
Just Got Paid
Sharp Dressed Man
Legs

Encore:
Brown Sugar
Tube Snake Boogie
La Grange

Set List: George Thorogood & the Destroyers

Rock Party
Who Do You Love?
Mama Talk to Your Daughter
I Drink Alone
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
Get a Hair-cut
Gear Jammer
Move It on Over
Gloria
Bad to the Bone
Born to Be Bad

Set List: Dallas Frasca

Anything Left to Wonder
All My Love
River Queen
Let It Rain
Kashmir / Black Dog / Immigrant Song / Whole Lotta Love

 

 

 

 

 

Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries