Wednesday, December 05, 2012

I Wasn't the Guy

 Las Vegas Sun News: Wednesday night and again Saturday, ZZ Top headlines at House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. The Vegas HOB outpost seats about 1,800, so it should be a rockin’ good time in close quarters, a lot less sprawling than the Indy Speedway but more lively than the night in Alvin, Texas, when the band played for just one guy. 

“It’s a story that’s been around some, but, yeah, we were playing the armory in Alvin, one of these hamlets we used to play, doing one of our first shows as a band (in 1970),” Hill says. “We went into the place, the curtain opened, and one guy was standing out there. He didn’t even have a date. He thought he was in the wrong place. We bought him a Coke and played a whole set for one guy.” 

Fifteen years later, during a sold-out show at the Summit Arena in Houston, the guy sent a note backstage to ZZ Top. 

“We saw him again and invited him backstage and met him,” Hill recalls. “That really happened. We played the places with the chicken wire up in front of the stage. That’s the way it was.”

Hat tip to Fred Zackel.

3 comments:

Randy Johnson said...

The question is "Would you have liked to be the guy?"

Deb said...

I saw them about 25 years ago (when "Legs" and "Sharp-Dressed Man" were big hits). They put on a great show and it was a lot of fun.

Bud said...

Wasn't a "rock" fan in my younger days (and wouldn't call myself a "fan" now in my dotage), but the ZZs were the first "rock" band that I actually liked, mainly for their music and performance style. I actually heard about them when they started in Houston, but, being "anti-rock", I didn't pay any attention until accidently hearing them on radio in the late 80s.