ZZ Top are heading back on the road and have rolled out a 25-date spring and summer “Raw Whisky” tour itinerary. The tour’s title is a hat tip to both the forthcoming album as well as the recent release of ZZ Top Tres Hombres whisky from Balcones Distilling of Waco TX, a flavorful 100 proof mash bill of roasted blue corn, malted barley and rye.
As it stands now, the band featuring Billy F. Gibbons, Frank Beard, and bassist Elwood Francis will kick things off on May 6th in Niagara Falls, Ontario at the Fallsview Casino Resort and run through August 27th when the tour wraps at Beaver Dam, Kentucky's Beaver Dam Amphitheater.
Coming on July 22nd will be the new 11-track Raw album, which recorded as part of the 2019 Netflix documentary That Little Ol' Band From Texas. Highlights include such classics as “La Grange, “Tush,” “I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide,” and “Gimme All Your Lovin',” among others. The recordings, which feature late-bassist Dusty Hill, were recorded at a “very intimate session at Gruene Hall — the oldest continually run dance hall in Texas.”
Billy F. Gibbons and Frank Beard wrote about the sessions in the album's liner notes:
It was, in a very real way, a return to our roots. Just us and the music, no audience of thousands, no concession stands, no parking lot social hour, no phalanx of tour busses. Just us and the music.
We knew right then it was a very special circumstance, all of us in the same place at the same time and what a time it most certainly was!
It was as bare bones as when we first started touring in a behemoth Chrysler station wagon, driving vast stretches between those early far-flung shows under blackened Texas skies and first hearing our records on the radio. We were bonded as brothers.
'The Dust’' may have left the building but he’s still very much with us.
It's going on 40 years after ZZ Top's MTV era-defining 1983 Eliminator album, which featured such instant band classics as “Gimme All Your Lovin',” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Legs.” We asked guitarist Billy F. Gibbons how the band was able to embrace the 1980's while staying true to themselves musically: “Yeah, well as the old saying goes: 'One foot in the blues.' It keeps it honest and kinda straight ahead. We can narrow the range — take it far left, far right; let's go back to step one — the blues.”
JUST ANNOUNCED: ZZ Top tour dates (subject to change):
May 6 – Niagara Falls, ON – Fallsview Casino Resort
May 29 – Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre
June 1 – Redding, CA – Redding Civic Auditorium
June 2 – Saratoga, CA – The Mountain Winery
June 5 – Jacksonville, OR – Britt Pavilion
June 7 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
June 8 – Walla Walla, WA – Wine Country Amphitheater
June 9 – Spokane, WA – First Interstate Center for the Arts
June 12 – Billings, MT – MetraPark – First Interstate Arena
June 14 – Grand Junction, CO – Las Colonias Park Amphitheater
June 17 – Tucson, AZ – Casino Del Sol’s AVA Amphitheater
June 19 – Colorado Springs, CO – Pikes Peak Center for the Performing Arts
June 21 – Loveland, CO – Budweiser Events Center
June 22 – Grand Island, NE – Fonner Park – Heartland Events Center
June 24 – Park City, KS – Hartman Arena
June 25 – Oklahoma City, OK – Zoo Amphitheatre
June 26 – Little Rock, AR – First Security Amphitheater
June 29 – Rogers, AR – Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion
July 1 – Toledo, OH – Toledo Zoo & Aquarium – Amphitheater
July 2 – Sterling Heights, MI – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill
July 5 – Fort Wayne, IN – Foellinger Theater
July 9 – Greenville, WI – Greenville Lion’s Park
July 22 – Boston, MA – Leader Bank Pavilion
July 23 – Watertown, NY – Watertown Fairgrounds Baseball Diamond
August 27 – Beaver Dam, KY – Beaver Dam Amphitheater