Saturday night was the hottest day in Texas so far for me and I’d like to think that ZZ Top at Whitewater Ampitheater had a hand in it.  My Summer concert series started out with great success and it was time to follow up the beats with some classic rocking sauce.  Billy Gibbons and company did not disappoint.  Sure we may have been behind a bit, but the show I saw was a full one and still left me thirsty for more.  Dang heat.

I’ve been slipping into a  behavior of showing up for shows before the doors open.  When I have done this, it meant standing around and waiting for a 1 to 2 hours (I’m thinking of Emo’s East and Best Coast).  Well,  this time around I though that showing up about an hour later than door opening give me a minimal wait time.  Boy was I wrong, the traffic coming slowed us down enough that we actually missed the opening band.  Fortunately, it was a country band that I was in no mood to hear so I didn’t miss out on much.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgdnwU-bMSI[/youtube]

When ZZ Top took the stage, it was kinda like seeing a celebrity in public.  It took me a couple of seconds to realize that they were actually there.  Now, I expected to see the band of course but when you are dealing with a classic group like ZZ Top you tend to experience a bit of disbelief.  I know alot of their songs and I’ve never seen them before, so once I got over the reality of them being there I had a major blast.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_TnhgRYOmI[/youtube]

The one lament I have for the show is that they did not play enough.  The set, including the encore, last about an hour and 10 minutes.  They have way more songs in their catalog that I didn’t get a chance to hear.  I can chalk that up to their large catalog, but we got outta there around 10:40.  I think they could’ve gone about 20 minutes more.  Whitewater Ampitheater was a quick stop (they didn’t have 3 Doors Down or Gretchen Wilson with them) so I think they were used to the small set.  Plus, it was hot as hell out there, I’m sure they were sweating their beards off up there.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz9YK0vAp5o[/youtube]

But hey, it was a real treat and I’m perfectly happy suffering through a 2 hour sweat fest to hear ZZ Top bang out some classics.  I especially like how the staff at Whitewater made sure to tell everyone that cameras were not allowed only to see the cellphones and point-and-shoots pop out at the first sight of the band.  Oh well, I guess it was due diligence on their part.  And it was due diligence on ZZ Top to bang out a great rock and roll concert.