Things got surreal very quickly at ZZ Top’s show three years ago in Huntsville, Alabama — and in a very ZZ Top way. The opening song of the band’s Von Braun Center set, vintage hit “Got Me Under Pressure,” featured the onstage debut of bassist Elwood Francis’ bright yellow 17-string bass guitar.
That’s more than four times the normal amount of bass strings, four. “I thought I’d use this bass once or twice for no other reason than amusement,” Francis later wrote on Instagram. “It’s such a strikingly absurd instrument.”
ZZ Top has a history of visually striking guitars. Especially the spinning, furry instruments guitarist Billy Gibbons and original bassist Dusty Hill played in their classic music video for 1984 smash “Legs.”
We’ll soon see if ZZ Top has another surprise like that in store for Huntsville. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band has announced an April 18 Orion Amphitheater concert. Tickets go on sale 10 a.m. November 21 via axs.com. At the time of publishing this story, ticket prices weren’t readily available.
Country music legend Dwight Yoakam is accompanying ZZ on their latest trek, dubbed the “Dos Amigos Tour.” Known for ‘80s and ‘90s hits like “Guitars, Cadillacs” and “Fast as You,” Yoakam will open the shows.
Formed in 1969 Houston, ZZ Top turned the blues-rock trio format into big hits and big business. Signature tunes include: “La Grange,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Tush,” “Just Got Paid,” “Waitin’ for the Bus,” “Legs,” “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Gimme All Your Lovin’.”
The latter three songs were visualized in a troika of iconic music videos during MTV’s ‘80s prime. Gibbons and Hill shared lead vocal duties on the band’s heyday recordings.
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Today, ZZ Top still features two of three original members. Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard, ironically the only non-bearded member of the famously bearded band. Francis, a former guitar tech for ZZ Top and other groups including Black Crowes, took over on bass after Hill died in 2021 at age 72.
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Besides the debut of Francis’ 17-string bass, the band has more North Alabama connections. Gibbons is married to Madison native Gilligan Stillwater. In recent years, the ZZ Top guitar hero has been spotted at local Tex-Mex restaurants and ChuckWagon BBQ and Guitar Center’s Huntsville store.
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Most notably, ZZ Top wrote their timeless boogie rocker “Tush” during a pre-show rehearsal May 23, 1974 at Florence’s Lauderdale Coliseum.
“We were playing in a dirt-floor rodeo arena without air conditioning,” Gibbons said in a 2021 Guitar World interview. “It was so fiercely hot. I made up this introductory riff, and I recall the lighting director: He pulled the headphones off, and he put his finger in the air, and he was grinning and pointing, and he said, ‘Don’t lose it.’”
In addition to multiple Von Braun Center shows over the years, in the early ‘70s, ZZ Top performed at Madison County Coliseum, where big local concerts were held before the VBC’s 1975 opening. The band’s 2026 concert will be their first time performing at Orion Amphitheater.
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