New dates in Florida

ZZTOP.com has just announced a few new dates in Florida--April 30
(Melbourne) and May 4 (Jacksonville). These look good as warm-up shows
for the South American dates. Hopefully there will be a few more and
we'll get some changes in the set list.

ZZ Top returns to Eric Clapton's Crossroads--in Chicago!

Just announced today: ZZ Top will be playing (with many others) at the 2010 version of Crossroads, this time at Toyota Park in Bridgeview (Chicago) Illinois on June 26.

ZZ Top to rock France in July!

More summer dates are leaking out, they are scheduled for a festival on or about July 16. Check prior posts for the tentative 2010 summer tour info.

Billy Gibbons to Guest Star on CSI: Miami

Rob Zombie is directing an episode of CSI: Miami which will have a number of cool guest stars, supposedly including the Reverend himself, Billy F. Gibbons. Should air on or around March 1, keep your eyes open for this one.

Thrill Seekers and Hell Raisers

That the was the ZZ Top-inspired title of this week's episode of "Psych" (one of my favorite shows) on the USA Network here in the States. The episode hs nothing to do with the band, though.

In other news, another rumored (NOT confirmed yet) date for the band is a spring date at the Tumbleweed in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Stay tuned...

ZZ Top Live Recordings (mainly video)

This post will list most of my ZZ Top live recordings. Right now I am not trading but hope that others who are keeping lists will find this useful, in case there is anything I have that is not known to other collectors. In chronological order:

1976-1983 "Old Stuff" Houba Houba etc DVD
March 16, 1977 Boston Garden MA (Audio) CD

Recycler Tour
??? 1990 Reno NV VHS Connecticut??? (confusion on date/location)
??? 1990 Toronto CN VHS
January 28, 1991 New York??? VHS
April 11, 1991? Lakeland FL VHS

Rhythmeen Tour
October 25, 1996 Radio City Music Hall NY VHS
1996? Johannasburg South Africa (interviews+clips) VHS
September 19, 1997 Phoenix AZ VHS

XXX Tour
October 19, 1999 Moline IL DVD
December 9, 1999 Tuscon AZ VHS
January 18, 2000 Wilkes-Barre, PA DVD
February 29, 2000 Peoria IL VHS and DVD

May 10, 2003 Charlotte NC DVD
November 11, 2005 Beacon Theatre NY DVD
??? Camden NJ DVD

unknown "Sharp Dressed Man" Special from Houston tv show
Have but currently lost" Milan DVD

Billy Gibbons on Conan O'Brien NOW...

...playing FreeBird with Will Ferrell and...can't exactly describe it, it will be all over YouTube tomorrow morning.

Rumor: ZZ to play at Moncton this year.

Rumor floating around is that ZZ may play (possibly with Bruce Springsteen) at Moncton in Canada this summer. Just a rumor at this point.

No ZZ at Houston Rodeo in 2010.

The headine says it all. The 2010 concert lineup for the HLSR has been announced and no ZZ. No rock at all, for that matter. Wait 'til next year.
--------------------------

Houston Rodeo 2010?

The next big event to look for is the Houston Rodeo. It is our guess,
based on past experience, that ZZ Top will not be playing this year, but
at least one Houston-area music blogger has implied that they will. We
kinda doubt that since they usually don't play two years in a row and
there do not appear to be any "classic rock" days on the calendar, but
thye don't have anything else currently booked, you never know. We
should hear something either way in the next week or two as the Rodeo
makes their final announcements.

Mexican Blackbird in Japan!

Been quiet lately, but there is some cool video/photos of Billy showing
off his new car at a classic car show in Japan in December:

http://www.pollstar.com/blogs/news/archive/2009/12/29/703378.aspx

http://www.mooneyes.co.jp/hcs/09/report/e/index.html

ZZ Top to tour Brazil on May 2010

Well, someone at zztop.com has woken up and finally announced the High Voltage festival headlining date, along with the South American tour, which they list for May (not March) 2010. We only beat them to the scoop by a week, that's better than they have been.

Anywhooo since both of these tours are now confirmed we ask our readers to let us know when any new dates are announced in their areas.

New European Tour set for Summer 2010

OK, on the heels of the (unconfirmed) postponement of the (unconfirmed) 2009 South American Tour, our sources tell us that ZZ Top may be doing yet another European tour (weak dollar--let's go to Europe!) in the Summer of 2010. A London festival date is already rumored, who knows what else will be out there.

So the year for ZZ could look something like this:

March 2010--South America (rumored Sao Paulo [March 10, 2010])
July 2010--Europe (rumored London [July 24. 2010])
August 2010--USA (confirmed for Sturgis [August 9, 2010] and Wisconsin Dells [August 7, 2010])

ZZ Top Brazil and South American Tour Postponed?

Supposedly ZZ Top's (never officially announced) South American tour that was originally scheduled for December 2009 has been pushed back to March 2010 because their European set (which was going to be shipped to S.A. for the shows) was somehow damaged. Sounds funny but with this band you never know what's going on.

Bill Narum R.I.P.

Sad news in ZZ land, Bill Narum passed away. Bill worked with the band for many many years, and designed many of their classic album covers and tour backdrops. He also was the first webmaster for the official ZZ Top web site, and still ran the scrawl board at z-2-z.com.

Bill was always happy to talk with ZZ fans from around the world, and was even gracious enough to provide his original artwork, free of charge, for the recent ZZ Top Fanzz tribute cd.

He will be missed by many.

Headed up to Milwaukee

We are headed up to Milwaukee for the show tonight.

We doubt that we will see anything new or that there will be any changes
to the set list, but we will file a full report tomorrow.

Have Mercy.

ZZ Top to play at Country Music Awards

Rumor has it that the band -- maybe not the whole band, but at least
Billy Gibbons -- will be playing at the CMAs this Wednesday, likely with
Brooks & Dunn. Should be pretty cool.

ZZ Top on NASCAR today

Just a reminder for all of our U.S. readers to check out the NASCAR race from Texas right now on ABC. The Boyzz played a pre-race concert and they already showed footage on tv of a few of the songs. They also gave the "Genmtlemen, start your engines" instruction to begin the race. They will probably be interviewed during the race as well.

ZZ Top Brazil dates confirmed

It looks like the S.A. tour is now confirmed. One additional date to
add to the three we mentioned is December 12 in Rio at the HSBC Arena.

ZZ To Tour South America?

There are rumors floating around on the web that ZZ Top will do a short South American tour this December. We have not heard any confirmation on this but it wouldn't surprise us. We're waiting for them to play Japan again, too.

Here are some of the *tentative* S.A. dates:

Thursday 10 December 2009
ZZ Top Via Funchal
São Paulo, Brazil

Sunday 13 December 2009
ZZ Top Espaço das Américas
São Paulo, Brazil

Thursday 17 December 2009
ZZ Top Movistar Arena
Santiago, Chile



We'll let you know if we hear anything more.

In other touring news, we will be seeing the Boyzz at a small theater in Milwaukee on November 10 before they head up to Canada.