Concert Review - ZZ Top - Auckland - 17th May 2025

Presented By Live Nation

ZZ TOP Live in Auckland Photo Credit Ginny Cocks

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Review By: Faith Hamblyn

Artist/Band: ZZ Top with Special Guest George Thorogood & the Destroyers

Venue/City: Spark Arena, Auckland, New Zealand

Date of Event: Saturday 17th May 2025

Melbourne’s Dallas Frasca’s voice is enormous. She only had a backing track accompanying her at Spark Arena tonight, but it was a thumping great sound, and if she’d brought anyone over with her, they might’ve knocked out the first row. Under the stage lights, her pink hair seemed to glow in the dark, and she absolutely shreds.

She opened with ‘Anything Left To Wonder’, a no-holds-barred proclamation that you’d have to punch her harder to best her. But it was her Led Zeppelin medley that really impressed – she can be both Jimmy Page and Robert Plant! While it would be freakish to have Planty’s high shriek as well as his blues growl, she can storm through ‘Kashmir,’ ‘Black Dog’, ‘Immigrant Song’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love’ with bombast.

Warmed up, it was time for George Thorogood & the Destroyers, in a rock-and-roll mood. They played Barry McGuire’s ‘Eve of Destruction’ before going on stage, because, after all, they’re the Destroyers - I see what they did there. Thorogood had on tuxedo pants with a stripe and a fitted black T-shirt, ready to roll a cigarette pack up into the sleeve. Billy Blough, on bass, looked like the B-B-B-B-Big Lebowski.

The lighting was jukebox-themed, and he shuffled a duckwalk like Mick Jagger imitating Chuck Berry. After ‘Rock Party’, they played Bo Diddley’s ‘Who Do You Love’, and while Thorogood’s spry and doing moves like Jagger, I do think he should change the lyric from ‘I’m just 22.’ Even Ronnie Hawkins admitted to have turned 41 in the ‘70s playing it with The Band.

‘Gentlemen, start your engines,’ instructed Thorogood, before launching into the braggadocio of ‘Mama Talk To Your Daughter’ and ‘I Drink Alone’. He preened his hair into a ducks-ass hairdo to give the crowd what they wanted - one bourbon, one scotch and one beer.

After ‘Get A Haircut’, which the crowd went nuts for, Thorogood draped a sparkly scarf around his neck, and the band performed Them’s ‘Gloria.’ They ended with ‘Bad To The Bone,’ of course. If Dallas Frasca is Plant and Page’s offspring, George Thorogood is one of Muddy Waters’ and John Lee Hooker’s.

OG desert rockers ZZ Top are a man or two down, but Billy Gibbons has got this, along with a truly huge, phat drum kit and new-boy Elwood Francis on bass. One of his basses has 17 strings, and he has the hair of Rick from ‘Rick and Morty’. It makes sense when I know ZZ Top so well from Back To The Future 3, and their stage set looks like Michel Gondry made it.

They opened with ‘Got Me Under Pressure’, which made the ladies behind me boogie so hard, they spilled a little bourbon and Coke on my head. By the time ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’ came around, I was transfixed. They had dozens of pastel-coloured amps, and their jackets were the sparkliest version of tex-mex you could imagine.

‘Sharp Dressed Man’ was super-resonant, given all the shine. Their microphone stands changed colour, and the lights looked like sunshine shining through bullet holes after a shootout. But what came next genuinely surprised me.

ZZ Top have always known the power of a good gimmick – cheeky without being hammy. I’d seen them spinning guitars and dancing in sync in the ‘80s, but I was still surprised when, for ‘Legs’, they brought out matching woolly guitars, complete with a crowd-pleasing sheep joke. These space cowboys are somehow now actually Back To The Future – they aimed their wireless guitars at the drummer and tried to kill him with their bassy blues sound. And there was only one more thing I needed.

They closed with ‘La Grange’, and the crowd went loco. In the words of John Lee Hooker, ‘A-how-how-how-how!’

Five beard-y stars

SETLISTS
Dallas Frasca:
Anything Left to Wonder
All My Love
I Only See You
Led Zeppelin medley - Kashmir / Black Dog / Immigrant Song / Whole Lotta Love

George Thorogood & the Destroyers:
Jeff Simon/Billy Blough/Jim Suhler/Buddy Leach
Rock Party
Who Do You Love? (Bo Diddley cover)
Mama Talk to Your Daughter (JB Lenoir cover)
I Drink Alone
House Rent Boogie / One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer (John Lee Hooker covers)
Get A Haircut
Gear Jammer
Move It on Over (Hank Williams cover)
Gloria (Them cover)
Bad to the Bone

ZZ Top:
Billy Gibbons/John Douglas/Elwood Francis
Got Me Under Pressure
I Thank You (Sam & Dave cover)
Waitin' for the Bus
Jesus Just Left Chicago
Gimme All Your Lovin'
Pearl Necklace
I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide
I Gotsta Get Paid
My Head's in Mississippi
Sixteen Tons (Merle Travis cover)
Just Got Paid
Sharp Dressed Man
Legs

Encore
Brown Sugar
Tube Snake Boogie
La Grange

ZZ Top / George Thorogood The Elevation Tour 2025 Poster

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