Elwood Francis (left) and Billy Gibbons (right) of ZZ Top, in Christchurch on Thursday night. Photo / Alec Huisman
Legendary blues-rockers ZZ Top are in New Zealand for three shows, concluding the Australasian leg of their Elevation tour. Supporting them are long-time friends George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Mike Thorpe went to the Christchurch show to see if two 75-year-olds can still rock a crowd.
From the moment ZZ Top shuffle on stage at Christchurch’s Wolfbrook Arena, it’s difficult not to smile.
Billy Gibbons with his trademark ginger beard, old hat and bedazzled outfit, Elwood Francis with his wild silver hair, matching jacket and colossal 17-string bass guitar. They launch straight into Got Me Under Pressure.
That’s the party piece for the novelty bass that Francis has said publicly started as a joke and ended up being at his own expense. The “one-off” is now a regular feature. It looks awkward to play and by all accounts it is. It lasts one song.
There’s a growing awkwardness in the crowd as well. It’s a seated arrangement where concertgoers are permitted to dance in the aisles – but the front row is a protected space. Multiple attempts by eager revellers to enter this sacred area are thwarted by security as Gibbons kicks into I Thank You.
The front row remains seated with more leg room than a first-class flight, unmoved by the growing upright throng behind them.
This version of ZZ Top is different to the line-up that has toured previously.
The band have undergone dramatic change in recent times for a trio that went 52 years unchanged. Long-time bassist Dusty Hill died suddenly in 2021. Gibbons, Hill and Frank Beard (the drummer, without a beard) had famously jammed for the first time in 1969 with a three-hour marathon of Shuffle in C.
Elwood Francis was Hill’s guitar technician before replacing him in 2021. Beard is still with the group but was unable to make the Australasian leg of the Elevator Tour due to health issues. He’s replaced by the band’s drum technician – John Douglas, who is excellent – but there’s only one Frank Beard.
Billy Gibbons has always been ZZ Top’s constant, and his unique voice and masterful blues/rock guitar seem to be ageing as well as his still-very-ginger beard.
Gimme All Your Loving tests the seated front row as the crowd behind them find their voice. More invaders from the aisle attempt to inhabit the area – only to be turned around and sent back over the same seats they’d hurdled in the name of rock and roll.
Pearl Necklace, I’m Bad – I’m Nationwide, and I Gotsta Get Paid prove too much for one man who attempts to rush the stage. The bad bones that George Thorogood & The Destroyers had sung about earlier in the night prevent him from scaling the barrier, so he defiantly grips it in the hope that security won’t prise his fingers from it. They do – and lead him away. He briefly resists.
I don’t wish to be unfair – and I certainly won’t attempt to put an age on him – but it felt like the oldest concert ejection I’ve ever seen.
Things are heating up.
By now, Billy Gibbons is playing the intro to a song that everybody feels like they should know.
“Don’t get too excited, we’re just making this sh*t up,” says Gibbons – to the relief of every puzzled ZZ Top superfan.
The fluffy guitars come out for Sharp Dressed Man and the front row is showing signs of movement. Arms unfolded, some even rise to their feet. It’s unclear if it’s the strokable guitars or Francis’ processed vocals of “Black Tie”, but the 1983 single from the band’s biggest album (Eliminator) is proving irresistible to the dancing feet of even the most rhythmically stubborn.
By the time the opening licks of Legs ring out around Wolfbrook Arena, the battle for the front row is lost. Outsiders pour in and security waves the white flag.
The band walk off – the crowd stamp their feet and chant for the encore, to which the trio oblige.
“We ain’t going nowhere, we just wanted to show off our new jackets,” says Gibbons after a wardrobe change.
Brown Sugar and Tube Snake Boogie follow before Gibbons relays what he’s been told by Francis.
“Go ahead and do that thang,” he drawls before Douglas plays the rim of his snare drum to open the iconic 1973 hit La Grange.
Gibbons can still “do that thang”. At 75 he’s still worth jumping the front row to see up close, clearly.
Earlier, George Thorogood had proven that he still has the chops, too. There are no gimmicks with Thorogood. No screens, no props and no shortage of hits.
He welcomed the crowd to “The Thursday night Jamboree and Hootenanny in Christchurch, New Zealand” before a song dedicated to his friends Johnnie Walker, Jack Daniels, Jimmy Beam and his good buddy Weiser - I Drink Alone.
Thorogood and Destroyers original Jeff Simon (drums) team up for the storytelling classic One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer that starts off with House Rent Blues.
“I take it some of you have heard this story before?” says Thorogood.
He’s got the crowd on side early.
There is an alcoholic theme to some of Thorogood’s best-known tunes, but the 75-year-old also delivers a public service announcement pleading concertgoers not to drink and drive.
Thorogood takes a swig of something mid-performance, brought to him by one of his band – it looks more like a cough-syrup than a shot of bourbon or scotch. It seemed as though he was having a few issues with his voice – but there was no such issue with his fingers. Thorogood has long been known as an incredible slide guitarist, and that reputation is still intact.
He leaves the stage briefly before returning in a scarf to sing a cover of Van Morrison’s Gloria.
“We’ve been coming to this beautiful country since 1981,” he tells Wolfbrook Arena, then treats them to perhaps his biggest hit – released the year after his New Zealand debut, Bad To The Bone.
Thorogood told me last week that the divorce rate doubles when he’s in town, such is his effect on women. He makes these light-hearted, risque quips often – but during Bad To The Bone a young woman (genuinely young, not just compared with the crowd) climbs atop her boyfriend’s shoulders to flash the blues legend.
Thorogood isn’t surprised, barely raising an eyebrow. He’d warned us.
He leaves the stage draped in a robe like James Brown. The lights brighten and the crowd rest – and stretch. For many, it’s not just the bones that are bad, it’s muscular too.
ZZ Top and George Thorogood play Auckland’s Spark Arena on Saturday, May 17, and Wellington’s TSB Arena on Sunday, May 18.
Mike Thorpe is a senior journalist for the Herald, based in Christchurch. He has been a broadcast journalist across television and radio for 20 years and joined the Herald in August 2024.
The experience changed Kings' understanding of his music's impact on others.