The Reverend Willie G has spoken: ZZ Top shall carry on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a recent interview with Texas Monthly, Billy Gibbons explained why the band will continue to play shows (including one at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on Saturday, October 3) despite the fact that he is now the last man standing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After drummer Frank Beard\u2019s passing last month (bassist Dusty Hill died in 2021), many folks (including yours truly) opined that it was time to close the book on ZZ Top. \u00a0Not that I really want that to happen.\u00a0 It just seems like it is the right thing to do.\u00a0 Don\u2019t want to besmirch the legend and all that. Besides, Billy has already established a presence as a solo act with three fine albums and numerous shows with organist Mike Flanigin and drummer Chris Layton.<\/p>\n
(As I may have mentioned in this column, the band holds a special place in my heart, as their performance at the Summit on Thanksgiving Day in 1976 marked my first \u201creal\u201d concert.\u00a0 There was rock and roll, beer, 11 secret herbs and spices and the sight of young ladies displaying their attributes on the then-new \u201ctelescreens.\u201d\u00a0 My 14-year-old head almost exploded.)<\/p>\n
But Billy sees things differently.\u00a0 As he told Texas Monthly, \u201cIt\u2019s what we owe the fans. I guess the good news is that it may not be the same three guys, but it is the same three chords, same songs. And it\u2019s working.\u201d Gibbons went on to say, \u201cI\u2019ve gotten so many calls and texts from friends the last few days that have been reassuring. I got a nice one from Keith Richards.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t say, \u2018the show must go on.\u2019 He just said, \u2018I heard about it. I\u2019ve done it.\u2019 [The Rolling Stones decided to continue touring after drummer Charlie Watts\u2019 death in 2021.]\u00a0 That\u2019s all he said. It meant a lot and gave me a lot to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ticket Alert<\/p>\n
Well, how about that?\u00a0 After bypassing the Bayou City for the more geographically desirable (I guess that\u2019s the reason) Fort Worth on its current \u201cFifty Something\u201d tour, Rush is coming to Houston after all, on Thursday, October 1, at Toyota Center<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a press release, Guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist Geddy Lee said, \u201cWhen we initially booked this tour we didn\u2019t know how well we would hold up to the rigours [gotta love those Canadians!] of the road \u2013 so we played it safe with lots of days off to recover \u2013 but life is nothing if not surprising and we\u2019re doing fine and having a blast \u2013 so why not try to hit a few more of the cities that have always treated us so well.\u201d\u00a0 Presales are in progress, and the general sale is set for Friday.<\/p>\n Tickets are on sale now for the Pink Martini All Stars, who will perform on Tuesday, March 25, at the Hobby Center<\/a>.\u00a0 How to describe the band\u2019s music?\u00a0 We\u2019ll leave that to Pink Martini founder Thomas Lauderdale: \u201cOur repertoire is wildly diverse. At one moment, you feel like you\u2019re in the middle of a samba parade in Rio de Janeiro, and in the next moment, you\u2019re in a French music hall of the 1930s or a palazzo in Napoli. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201dIt\u2019s a bit like an urban musical travelogue. We\u2019re very much an American band, but we spend a lot of time abroad and therefore have the incredible diplomatic opportunity to represent a broader, more inclusive America, the America which remains the most heterogeneously populated country in the world, composed of people of every country, every language, every religion.\u201d<\/p>\n Concerts This Week<\/p>\n If you were making a movie and needed to cast the role of a heavy metal musician, guitarist Zakk Wylde would be your man.\u00a0 Looking like the bastard offspring of Hagar the Horrible and Grizzly Adams, Wylde spent years in Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s band before forming his own group, Black Label Society.\u00a0 Catch Zakk and his crew on Thursday at the Bayou Music Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n Josh Groban is a multitalented guy, with success in multiple arenas \u2013 the concert hall, film, television, and Broadway \u2013 so his program called \u201cStage, Screen and Symphony\u201d makes sense.\u00a0 Groban will give his audience a sampling of his multiple musical stylings on Thursday at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion<\/a>.\u00a0 A guy who can guest star on \u201cAlly McBeal\u201d and handle the lead role in Stephen Sondheim\u2019s Sweeney Todd?\u00a0 Now that\u2019s some range.<\/p>\n Nigerian singer, songwriter and rapper Asake brings his afrobeats sound to Toyota Center<\/a> on Friday as part of the \u201cIn God We Trust\u201d tour.\u00a0 However, I suspect that the theme will not be a spiritual one, as Asake\u2019s most recent album is titled M$NEY.<\/p>\n Current Austinite Carolyn Wonderland will pay a visit to her hometown of Houston on Friday with a show at the the Big Top<\/a>. \u00a0And any time she plays there, you know it\u2019s going to be a party. \u00a0So how did Wonderland, who once ruled the roost in these parts, end up in Austin?\u00a0 The story goes that, while the two of them were signing some autographs after a show, Doug Sahm told her that she should move to Austin because it was \u201cthe land of free guitar lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n The Atlanta Rhythm Section, an act that had hits with songs like \u201cSo into You\u201d and \u201cImaginary Lover,\u201d was initially not so much a band as a collection of session musicians who had all played on records coming out of Georgia.\u00a0 The ARS was tagged as a southern rock band, and while technically they were, the group\u2019s sound was generally a bit smoother and a tad more poppy than their \u201870s contemporaries.\u00a0 \u00a0You can hear the ARS on Saturday at Main Street Crossing<\/a> in Tomball.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Reverend Willie G has spoken: ZZ Top shall carry on.\u00a0 In a recent interview with Texas Monthly,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[10647,147712,147713,45865,147714,575,118660,226,56,58,57,115227,278,147715,10650,4979,147716,17453],"class_list":["post-424797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-alex-lifeson","tag-asake","tag-atlanta-rhythm-section","tag-billy-gibbons","tag-black-label-society","tag-concerts","tag-geddy-lee","tag-homepage","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-josh-groban","tag-music","tag-pink-martini","tag-rush","tag-shows","tag-zakk-wylde","tag-zz-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}