ZZ Top Coming to Rock Grand Forks

ZZ Top will bring their In Your Face Tour to the Chester Fritz in Grand Forks on October 18. This will be a rare venue for these Rock and Roll Hall of Famers who usually fill stadiums and domes with eager fans. In fact, the band had just come off a big festival tour through eight European countries.

Due to a strange routing quirk earlier this year, the band played an old theater in Knoxville, Tennessee. “That experience reminded us of our roots, both in terms of a stripped-down, gut-bucket musical approach and the direct connection with the people who came to see us,” said guitarist Billy F. Gibbons recently.

The band decided to do a short 19-venue stint through the Heartland with a couple of gigs on the West Coast. “To actually be able to see the whole audience and interact with them like this is a throwback to our early days, and who wouldn’t want to go back in time?” drummer Frank Bead remarked.

Dubbed “That Little Ol’ Band From Texas,” ZZ Top has been the longest-running, continuously-touring rock band ever. It’s members, Gibbons, Beard, and Dusty Hill, are known for their long whiskey-still beards. They have been sharing their brand of Southern rock, boogie, and blues with audiences for nearly four decades.

Formed in 1969, from two rival bands, Gibbons’ Moving Sidewalks and Beard and Hill’s American Blues, ZZ Top emerged as a blues rock band, but it wasn’t until their third album, Tres Hombres, in 1973 that the band hit nationally with “La Grange,” a song that celebrated “the best little whorehouse in Texas.”

Soon, ZZ Top was touring all over America and became an icon in Europe, visiting nearly every country there, and were well known in Australia and Japan. Their twenty albums have sold millions, but none ever garnered a Grammy.

ZZ Top will be returning to the studio this year to record another album. This one will be produced by Rick Rubin, who is known for merging metal and rap and for the American Series albums with the late Johny Cash.

If You Go

What: ZZ Top, Blackberry Smoke will open
When: Saturday, October 18, 8 pm
Where: Chester Fritz Auditorium, Grand Forks
Tickets: $89-$145 701.777.4094 or http://www.ticketmaster.com