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Texas sends its best

The band with most famous beards in rock and roll history, and some of the nastiest, grittiest and most popular blues-based rock music ever to come out of Texas, will be making a stop today as the headliners for Big Music Fest.
ZZ Top
Rock group ZZ Top headlines the Big Music Fest event at Kingston

KINGSTON, Ont. — The band with most famous beards in rock and roll history, and some of the nastiest, grittiest and most popular blues-based rock music ever to come out of Texas, will be making a stop today as the headliners for Big Music Fest.

There will be cheap sunglasses aplenty that day, as ZZ Top brings their travelling road show to Belleville, Ont., as part of a busy summer touring schedule that sees the band hopping back and forth, not only across the Canada-U.S. border, but also across the ocean.

The band has been playing in western Canada and northern Ontario and will play in Windsor the night before going to Belleville.

After more touring in the U.S. and Europe, the band will be back in Canada at Casino Rama in Orillia, Ont., on Sept. 9 and 10.

“We’re going great guns, at full speed. We’re just back from South America, where things were rockin’ in a big way,” said guitarist/vocalist Billy Gibbons, in an email interview.

He also discussed the fact that the band’s audience is both vast and diverse.

“Over the years, the stereotypes for different nationalities have been smashed,” he wrote.

“In the early days of ZZ’s career, it more often reflected that European audiences were on full reserve ... that’s certainly not the case now. Of course, it goes without saying that Canadian audiences are the craziest in the world ... then again, you already knew that. As far as the generation range, it’s all over the map. Parents are bringing their kids and kinds are bringing their parents.”

The multi-generational interest in the band stems from the fact that they have been a continuous musical entity for 41 years.

Gibbons, bassist/vocalist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard (the one who doesn’t actually have a beard) are without question the longest-running rock band with the same lineup.

ZZ Top has produced more than 20 albums and songs such as Tush, Cheap Sunglasses, Rough Boy, Legs, Sharp Dressed Man, I Thank You, Gimme All Your Lovin’, Sleeping Bag, Viva Las Vegas and Doubleback.

Although the band’s later albums haven’t sold in the numbers that their 1980s releases, Eliminator and Afterburner did, ZZ Top has always been a top draw on the concert circuit.

“We’re consistent: same three guys, same three chords and, as we like to say, ‘you just can’t lose with the blues,”’ Gibbons wrote, adding that the music itself has a very broad appeal.

“The Top’s topics are universal: cheap sunglasses, getting arrested for driving while blind, having a party on the patio, everybody can identify with those kinds of things, especially when you add some down ’n’ dirty grooves. It’s fine for us, and fun for an audience.”

Gibbons said that there are lots of younger people out there who are sick of being force fed the sort of pre-fabricated pop schlock that seems to be dominating the airwaves, which is why so many young people are cropping up at ZZ Top shows.

“There are a lot of enthusiasts out there really interested and focused on bands that actually play instruments, more than likely because these days it’s kind of a novelty,” he wrote, adding that video games and classic rock radio have also helped keep the band’s music alive and helped introduce it to younger generations of listeners.

“You’d be surprised the number of really little kids who know our stuff from Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and right now, somewhere within 50 miles from wherever you are, a classic rock station is playing Tush, and for a considerable number of listeners, that’s a new, never-heard-before song. It’s like an azimuth of rock and roll.”

The band also played the finale of American Idol a couple of years ago.

“We had a good time playing Sharp Dressed Man with David Cook, who went on to win (over Adam Lambert). It was kind of strange singing backup when you’re used to singing lead, which was a gas. Then again, if American Idol had been around when we began, we might never have gotten this far.”

Gibbons said that even though the band’s set list contains material that is two, three and even four decades old, it’s still fun to play.

“All of the material is still challenging to play and the fact is, the members of this band have developed a weird sixth sense what the other two are doing or going to do. It’s our great mental workout,” he wrote.

When the band gets a break from touring, it will be working with uber producer Rick Rubin on its latest studio album.

Rubin cut his teeth working with hip hop, rap and metal artists on Def Jam Records, but also received massive critical acclaim for his work with the late Johnny Cash, and Neil Diamond, reinventing both artists, with his stripped-down, emotional and back-to-basics recordings.

“We’re working with Rick a bit long distance while we’re on the road. And being friends with Rick allows for modern-meets-medieval. The sound we’re going for is loud and dirty — a bit of the basic ZZ Top,” Gibbons wrote.

Although all three members of the band are in their early ’60s, Gibbons sees no end in sight.

“We figure we’re about halfway there. We’ve been practising for the last 40 years, and we’re actually starting to get good, so we figure we’ll just keep on keeping on,”