They've got "Legs"

David Lindquist

October 09, 2008 by David Lindquist

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When Billy Gibbons is told that $500 is the face-value price for the best seats to ZZ Top's appearance Saturday at the Murat Theatre, the singer-guitarist says it's news to him.

Following a pause, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer says, "Some things are just out of the artist's control. We're about having a good time. We'll make it good from the front edge of the stage all the way to the back."

The premium ticket prices correspond with ZZ Top playing the 2,500-capacity Murat after attracting an audience of 9,000 to Verizon Wireless Music Center in 2007.

Memphis, Tenn.-based company TCB Concerts is presenting ZZ Top's current string of dates, advertised as the "In Your Face" tour. In addition to the $500 orchestra-pit seats, tickets ickets are $250, $100 and $45.

Gibbons says the tour's performances are a celebration of work that came before 1983 multiplatinum album "Eliminator" and its famed videos for "Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs," as well as before 1976's "Worldwide Texas Tour" and its onstage steer, buffalo and rattlesnakes.

"The door of the ZZ Top warehouse gets unlocked to let stuff in, but the door doesn't get unlocked to let anything out -- except for now," says Gibbons, who's made music with bass player Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard since 1969. "You'll be not only hearing sounds of how it started for us, but you'll be seeing the stuff that helped us get there."

During a recent phone interview, Gibbons talked about various eras of ZZ Top:

Question: When you came through Indianapolis with the Pretenders and the Stray Cats in 2007, you seemed to play with more intensity than on previous tours. Was that a particularly good night or was it the story for the entire tour?

Billy Gibbons: That momentum kicked in, and it was a delight to be out with the Pretenders and certainly the Stray Cats. It was (the Stray Cats') first get-together in a long, long time, so there was a lot of enthusiasm up there.

In the era when you had livestock onstage, would you ever look up and see a stray animal where it wasn't supposed to be?

I remember in Richmond, Va., one of the flying creatures -- we had a couple of turkey buzzards that were trained to perch on a fence -- got curious and decided to take flight. It also had been trained to come back and land on the trainer's white cowboy hat. At that time, cowboy hats were quite popular. There were flips and dips and everything else before the buzzard finally came in for a perfect two-point landing on this guy's head. I thought, "Gee, thanks a lot. How do you follow that act?"

Rhino Records issued a 25th-anniversary edition of "Eliminator" in September. What are your thoughts about that album today?

We were looking for a way to charge ahead in a new direction. We thought we were so modern and so with it. But if you listen to it, you can hear that bluesy thread. That's what keeps us together. I suspect our fans don't need or have a burning desire for us to ever leave that behind. I don't know if we could.

-David Lindquist / Indy.com

ZZ Top

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Murat Theatre, 502 N. New Jersey St.

Tickets: $500, $250, $100, $45. For more information, call (317) 239-5151 or visit www.ticketmaster.com.

Forum: Music

Tags: 

ZZ Top, legs, Billy Gibbons

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