Idaho Falls, ID- “That Little Ol’ Band From Texas” has been at it for well over a half century, and on May 2, 2023 ZZ Top will bring their “Raw Whisky Tour” to Hero Arena at the new Mountain America Center in Idaho Falls. Tickets go on sale to the public on Monday, February 13th at 10AM online at Ticketmaster.com or in person at the venue’s Bingham Healthcare Box Office during open hours.
ZZ Top has been delivering rock, blues and boogie on the road and in the studio to millions of devoted fans. With iconography as distinctive as their sound, ZZ TOP is virtually synonymous with beards, hotrod cars, spinning guitars and that magic keychain, all of which transcend geography and language.
It was in Houston in the waning days of 1969 that ZZ TOP coalesced from the core of two rival bands, Billy Gibbons’ Moving Sidewalks and Frank Beard and Dusty Hill’s American Blues. Their third album, 1973’s Tres Hombres, catapulted them to national attention with the hit “La Grange,” still one of the band’s signature pieces today. Eliminator, their 1983 album was something of a paradigm shift for ZZ TOP. Their roots blues skew was intact but added to the mix were tech age trappings that soon found a visual outlet with such tracks as “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs” on the nascent MTV. It was one of the music industry’s first albums to have been certified Diamond, far beyond Gold and Platinum and a reflection of US domestic sales exceeding 10 million units.
As a touring entity, they’ve been without peer over the past five decades, having performed before millions of fans on four continents and have been the subject of their own Grammy-nominated documentary titled That Little Ol’ Band From Texas. The band’s line-up of the bearded Gibbons and Hill and Beard, who ironically is clean shaven, remained intact for more than 50 years until Dusty’s passing. When Dusty temporarily departed the tour in the summer of 2021, it was a given that Elwood would be the perfect choice to stand in for Dusty until he could return. But Dusty’s return was not to be, and Elwood continues to handle the bass duties for the band now and into the future.
The elements that keep ZZ TOP fresh, enduring and above the transitory fray can be summed up in the three words of the band’s internal mantra: “Tone, Taste and Tenacity.”. As genuine roots musicians, they have few peers. Their influences are both the originators of the form – Muddy Waters, B.B. King, et al – as well as the British blues rockers and Jimi Hendrix who emerged the generation before ZZ’s ascendance.
They have sold hundreds of millions of records over the course of their career, have been officially designated as Heroes of The State of Texas, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (by Keith Richards, no less) and have been referenced in countless cartoons and sitcoms. They are true rock icons and, against all odds, they’re really just doing what they’ve always done. ZZ TOP abides!
About Danny Zelisko Presents:
Danny Zelisko began promoting shows in Arizona, in 1974, as a 19 year old transplant from Chicago. He soon founded the legendary concert promotion firm, Evening Star Productions, making the southwest a viable stop on most tours, producing thousands of shows over the years in Arizona, Las Vegas and New Mexico and eventually, all over the USA. Danny proudly partnered Grateful Dead shows with Bill Graham Presents in Phoenix and Las Vegas in the 80s and 90s, which helped transform this area of the country into a concert hotbed that benefitted from this vision, to this day. After a brief dalliance with the corporate world of concert producing, Zelisko went solo again in 2011, producing thousands of shows since with many of his favorite acts that he grew up with, in the business, focusing locally on the Celebrity Theatre and Talking Stick Resort. In 2020, Danny put out a book to unanimous acclaim called ALL EXCE$$, covering his life and career over the years, available on Amazon. As a huge music fan, his current plans include booking even more shows all over the country, making sure that people all over feel the LIVE ON STAGE excitement of the great bands he has been exposed to since The Beatles put out their first record in 1963. THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A GREAT LIVE CONCERT is the mantra!