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As the song says, 'We've been up, we've been down,' and yet, we still keep on keepin' on and that's really what counts. We were long gone by the time we might have seen the light of print. We'd play a town, split right after the show. Were reviews like this one typical of what people said about the band as they ascended to the top?īilly Gibbons: The band's incessant touring schedule spared scant little time to check reviews back then. Most everyone at the concert got what he came for – even if what he came for didn’t amount to much.' Outfitted in cowboy hats that looked as if they would fade and fall apart long before the 10th gallon of trail water could be poured in, the trio did their best to give the youthful audience a good show. 'Almost 13,000 young persons stomped their feet and clapped their hands for three hours Friday night at the ZZ Top concert at the Arena. OnMilwaukee: The Milwaukee Sentinel reviewer didn’t think much of the 1976 show with J. Prior to the Milwaukee show, singer-guitarist Billy Gibbons talked with OnMilwaukee about some of his favorite ZZ Top moments from the last 50 years. The Texas Bash 50 th anniversary show will be held at the BMO Harris Pavilion beginning at 7:30 p.m. 4 to perform in celebration of a half century of making music together. It was the band’s 25th anniversary, and Harley-Davidson hired them to headline the company’s 90th birthday party weekend at the Summerfest grounds.Īnd now, after many more concerts in Milwaukee, ZZ Top returns on Wednesday, Sept. The most significant of those dates was the 1993 stop – June 12 to be exact. The band’s Milwaukee stops included summer shows in 1974, ‘75, ’76, ’80 and ’81, followed by autumn shows in ’82, ’83 and – after a break from the grind of nonstop tours – 1990, ’93, ’94 and ’96. ZZ Top headlined concert bills with Blue Oyster Cult, Mott the Hoople, Peter Frampton, Bad Company and Golden Earring in the opening slot. The toe-tapping 'La Grange' blasted from car radios everywhere that summer. Suddenly bands they opened shows for a year or two earlier were now opening for them. To promote their new album, 'Tres Hombres,' the band hit the road on a nationwide tour opening for Deep Purple. But a single emerged from the album that put ZZ Top on top once and for all. ZZ Top gained a little traction with the release of two albums, but it wasn’t until 1973 that the self-proclaimed 'Li’l Ol’ Band from Texas' moved closer to becoming headliners. The group opened for Grand Funk, Chuck Berry, the Grateful Dead, Leon Russell and pretty much any headliner band of the early 1970s. The following year, Moving Sidewalks opened for Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Doors, Frank Zappa and The Jeff Beck Group.Īfter a 20-city tour of the southwest opening for Janis Joplin, Gibbons left Moving Sidewalks and formed ZZ Top with bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard. In 1967, Gibbons’ band was the opening act for Texas shows by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, and Eric Burdon and the Animals.

He formed a band called Moving Sidewalks and played every teen dance club, high school prom and church festival that would have him. Recording artists from Texas like Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Waylon Jennings, Buddy Holly and Stevie Ray Vaughn all benefited from the outlaws’ eclectic playlists that streamed across Texas, sometimes with a signal that reached 50,000 watts.īy the time Gibbons was 16, he’d already played in a bands and was looking for the next step on the ladder.

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These stations were free to play whatever they wanted, and their broadcasts were easily picked up on countless transistor radios all across the southwest. Growing up in Houston, Texas, Gibbons had the advantage of being able to listen to the unregulated, or 'outlaw,' radio stations that operated just over the border in Mexico. Nothing too daring, and certainly very few black artists. At the time, most American pop radio stations were playing a tepid mix of songs by Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson and a toned-down Elvis in the post-Army phase of his career. In 1963, ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons received an electric guitar for his 13 th birthday. – 'Heard it on the X' (Billy Gibbons, Joe Hill and Frank Beard)

I'm talkin' 'bout that outlaw X cuttin' through the air. Oh, from coast to coast and line to line, in every county there, Do you remember, back in nineteen sixty-six?Ĭountry Jesus, hillbilly blues, that's where I learned my licks.

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