It's really fun to go back and try to remember these shows...or in this case, to remember the reason why I was interested in seeing a band in the first place.
I can only find one ticket stub for ZZ Top, but I'm sure that I saw them twice. Both times were at the Forum. I was looking at a website that listed a Forum date prior to this tour as being in August of 1986. That would have been the first time that I saw them. I was working in Santa Barbara at the time and I went to the show with a friend. I paid for those tickets. At the show in 1990, the tickets were free. I was working for a company that would get tickets to shows at The Forum. I believe that this show was the first time that I was able to take advantage of those perks. It would be the first of many.
I became a ZZ Top fan in the 70's. I remember reading an article about them in Circus Magazine, I found this picture online from one of their magazines in 1975. They were called "That Little Ol' Band From Texas" and the article was written about their Worldwide Texas Tour which included a stage in the shape of Texas as well as livestock on stage.
I don't remember if I had heard them by the time I saw this article or not? Fandango came out in 1975 and that was the first album of theirs that I owned. I loved that album, La Grange is one my all-time favorites. I'm a big Billy Gibbons fan. Of course ZZ Top exploded to an entirely new level in the 80's when their music videos, image and tweaked sound brought them a bigger audience. I liked their 80's work, but not as much as their pre-Eliminator work.
Both times that I saw the band, their 80's synth mode was in full effect. They still sounded alright, but I would have liked to seen them when they were more raw. The 1990 show was on the Recycler Tour. My favorite song from that album was My Heads In Mississippi which reminds me a little of La Grange. As you can see, they were still producing music videos with hot girls and cars during this time! Years later I was at the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA when they had some cars from Billy Gibbons' collection on display. I believe the car in this video is Billy's "Cadzilla" which is a beautiful car!
It was a good show...hearing Billy Gibbons play was definitely the highlight. I found a setlist for a show a couple days after the 11-25-90 date at The Forum. This setlist from Sacramento looks pretty close to what they were playing back then.
I couldn't find any decent live clips from this tour...so I went all the way back to 1980 for this great version of La Grange from Germany. Love that nasty guitar sound!
INCREDIBLE !!!
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