Ya Gotta See Them Live – ZZ Top and Tribute to Frank Beard

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0:05 Welcome to this edition of Ya Gotta See Them Live, the show where we look at the power of music and the power of love and Something like that. I don’t know. I forget what the intro of this show is. I’ve heard all the episodes that Dave has done, but I didn’t write it down. You can hear. Already from the start of the show and from the voice you’re hearing right now, I am not Dave. This episode is going to be a little different. I’m Matt. You don’t know who I am, I do some of the things at NEOZAZ from time to time. Huh. everybody. And I am jumping on the mic with absolutely no plan whatsoever. Or this episode because of something I Just listened to in a different series from NEOZAZ. I was catching up on the week’s releases and I was listening to the latest best of fives, the

1:08 I was going to say back to school moments. That’s not it. It’s the school TV moments, I think is what its title is. But they. Dave and Dave Luke and Chris hosted that and they Went through some of the Almost unbelievable amount of passings that have happened over the past couple of weeks in the in the entertainment world at large and a couple in the music industry. And one day and they Had mentioned they just weren’t going to get the best of fives for all of these. And one of the names they mentioned. was Frank Beard, the drummer for ZZ Top. and how he had passed away. And they actually made I think Chris made a really great Reference to Their appearance in Back to the Future 3 being his number one thing. I think he said it somewhat jokingly, but that’s actually a pretty good answer for Chris. And it made me. Well, I don’t have a best of fives for Frank Beard specifically because I’d just be doing a top five. ZZ Top. Show, like my top five favorite songs, and that’s not really directed anything at him. So I figured in kind of

2:12 An an inspiration or a and let’s see inspired by the The tributes we do record for the passing of Entertainment figures we like. I do an episode of Ya Gotta See Them Live on ZZ Top, and that’s what I’m talking about, Frank. Beard, legendarily the drummer. ZZ Top since the beginning. And he is As, well, we’ve just said, recently passed away. Second member of the original band to go. So it’s a little strange to say you gotta see him live when two-thirds of the original band. are no longer with us. However, the show is still going on. Billy Gibbons is Touring with Elwood Francis, who has stepped in for, or taken over, rather, is probably a better way to say it, for Dusty Hill, who passed away. We’re going to talk about that here. shortly and another drummer whose name I don’t have yet, but we’ll probably learn. Either by the time the show’s over or by the time they come around to Florida, because I am going to make every effort to see them.

3:18 Live again. So My history with ZZ Top. It’s I’m a fan. Was a fan, I should say. I’m a much bigger fan now, but I was a fan growing up. I don’t think anyone my age Really, um, this liked ZZ Top. I don’t think I ever heard of anyone like really. Disliking ZZ Top. Now They may only be able to really Listen to or name one song, and that’s fine. They had some huge hits like Sharp Dressed Man. I’ll say Sharp Dressed Man is my favorite song of theirs. It’s a Basic. Easy, obvious answer, but a friend of mine actually defended the same argument talking about Ozzy Osbourne: that hey, just because it’s basic doesn’t mean it’s not a banger. That’s what he said. So I love Sharp Dressed Man. Of course, Legs, Gimme All Your Lovin’, Sleeping Bag. Cheap Sunglasses, La Grange, all their hits I like. And that’s about all I really knew about them for the longest time. And They were

4:20 One point, and I know this from looking at clips online, they were the biggest. Draw In touring for a period of time. And I learned this when they were on a Episode of The Tonight Show when Johnny Carson was hosting. And it’s actually a pretty Fun clip, but it’s a little annoying clip at the same time. I would suggest looking it up if you’ve not seen this before because it’s an interesting live. By them. But the Doc Severinsen, I think is his name, and the NBC Orchestra or whatever they were called, the Tonight Show Orchestra. I don’t know what the I think it I can’t remember what the full name was. Did I see Orchestra? They played an accompaniment to Sharp Dressed Man actually. And it kind of Takes a little bit of the life out of the song. And there is a moment in this that’s very annoying. Billy Gibbons starts the song right at the point it should be, but then good old Doc Severinsen throws in an extra, I don’t know what, some kind of. orchestral punch that He Billy Gibbons actually stops singing and waits for the next

5:23 Beat of where the song could roll into and starts again. So it looks like Billy Gibbons screwed up, but he didn’t. He was actually like covering for something that shouldn’t have been added to the song in the first place. But that, okay, that’s not what this is about. Again, I have no notes for this. Doing this out of respect for the passing of two of the three members. ZZ Top, but that is a clip I think still worth checking out if you’ve never seen it before. And my point of this was: this was about the only opportunity I had growing up to see them was on this giant tour. It was a tour for their album Eliminator. I don’t know if it was called the Eliminator tour. I don’t even know if they have. Tour names for when they go around. They seem to never really stop touring. So I’m not sure when you pick one tour ends or decide when tour ends and one begins when you start. Going through ZZ Top’s live performances, but it was when Eliminator had come out. And that has their hits that everybody in my generation knows. I said them already, and I’ll say it again: Gimme All Your Lovin’. Sharp Dressed Man. Man, sorry, legs was on there. They were all over the TV, uh, MTV at the time, especially with the legs video. Those

6:25 not only the imagery of course of the Women’s legs, but the famous, I don’t even. I call them the flamingo guitars. I don’t know what they are, but the feathered guitars. they still have a version of today on one of their live shows. They were huge, and this is about the only opportunity, again, that I probably could have seen them when I was young. Played somewhere in Philadelphia. I’m going to say. Is either Spectrum or Veterans Stadium? Because these were. This was a during their height, they weren’t playing small arenas, they weren’t playing kind of off the grid venues, they weren’t playing clubs, that’s for damn sure. They were playing these huge venues and we rarely ever. Saw. Any concert in a big venue at that when I was at that age. This was in the mid-80s, so I was. Anywhere between 10 and 15. I wasn’t driving, is my point. Not even 16 years old yet. No way were my parents taking me to something like that. And it wasn’t because of the music.

7:29 It was because of the The whole process getting from Quakertown to Philadelphia. Getting into the stadium, dealing with the people. My, uh, if, if, One thing I’ve learned. Definitely gotten from my parents is the unwillingness to be and deal with crowds. My mother’s more of a people person than my father is, and I think I kind of land in the middle of the two, but they’re both not big crowd people, and I definitely inherited that from them. So we never, ever. We could see the only ever the only time we’ve ever saw a concert. In one of those menus I just mentioned was Veterans Stadium and it was The Monkees. And it was after a Temple football game. And Temple wasn’t very good at the time, so this this these these were the kind of perfect storm factors that My father agreed to go. One, we could get to the city during the day. Beginning of the game. Two, the game wouldn’t be crowded.

8:32 So we could kind of easily get in, and then the people coming to see The Monkees would come after that. So that’s when the big crowd would. Be there. And then, too, we’d probably, I think the way everything was timed, I think the concert was ending up being like a Four or five, we’d still get home. at a decent hour, as the only time I saw any concert with my parents at Veterans Stadium. I’ve gone since then once I could drive. That’s just to give you an idea. how we were not going to go see them. So that time passed their height had hit, and I think Afterburner came out after Eliminator, and that was one of the first two CDs I ever got. I got for Christmas, I got ZZ Top Afterburner. I got Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet. And I played the hell out of Afterburner. I love a lot of the songs on there. Sleeping Bag, I think is what kicks off the album. Rough Boys ended up being a hit for them on the radio, which is strange because it’s so different, and maybe that’s why it was so different for them. And it was an album I could listen all the way through, much like Eliminator. So, kept up being the fan at the level I was, not the biggest fan in the world.

9:40 Just someone who enjoyed ZZ Top. really had nothing bad to say about them. Now, fast forward several decades, and I’m talking several decades. And we are now in the pandemic. I have said several times on many NEOZAZ shows that I have I was uh and considered in an industry that was considered essential. Serv services, supplies it was more the manufacturing that we were doing. We weren’t really a services, but I had to I was still working during the pandemic. And actually that’s probably a really good thing’cause even when the weekends came around, I was like bored and stretching for things to do and start would go a little stir crazy by Sunday night, which is weird because it’s the same two days off I always had before the pandemic, but now I mean you couldn’t go anywhere. I was stuck for 48 hours plus, not counting the times. Work was over, and before I had to go to work, and I would start to get a little stir-crazy. And it was one of those little stir-crazy Sundays, I think. Where I was like, I have watched every series I needed to catch up on, every series I’ve not seen before on streaming, and every YouTube video that I could possibly find. So now I’m digging deep into the depths of Netflix at the time to find anything that could keep me occupied. And I stumbled on, literally stumbled on, because I wasn’t looking for it. I wasn’t even looking for anything music related or a documentary.

11:03 And there’s a documentary called ZZ Top. That Little Ol’ Band from Texas. I’m like, I don’t, I mean, I know ZZ Top’s music. I can name a couple songs and albums, but that’s about as far as it goes. I’m going to watch this. That was a huge game changer and a huge shift in my fandom. And in fact, before I even get to that, let me tell you. If you’re a fan of documentaries, This is a fantastic documentary. Period. That’s one statement. If you’re a fan of music-based documentaries, We go from it being fantastic to I think I must watch. It is It was captivating. It was interesting. It had a very good pace, a lot of great music, and a lot of. Really fun old archival footage. Of these three guys, Frank Beard, Billy Gibbons, and Dusty Hill, that I have never seen it before. I mean, they had footage with them about beards, and then they had the story of how they had the beards, which I never knew.

12:06 And uh that Not only learning the story of them, Which was fun. Very incredibly interesting and educational, informational, I guess is a better way to say that. But they, between these kinds of segments and stages in their lives, they were on this very large open set. And they would get into these jam sessions where they just start kind of playing, and then we lead into a song that you usually knew or recognized, or at least had heard once. And for some reason performance as opposed to listening to a track on a C D. really resonated with me more than their music had than than the single tracks, the radio play, the whatnot. I just was finding myself Waiting for those moments in that documentary again and really, really enjoying. energy the three had. and what they were doing and what they were playing. And then like I said, just seamlessly going into these.

13:06 songs that I knew my whole life up to this point. And that’s when I was like, I, you know, I really want to see these guys. I never had the real opportunity to. So that’s when I started keeping. My eyes open sort of, well, best you could at the pandemic. I I had a plan to keep my eyes open. be able to see them. live at one point and Once things started to open up, concerts slowly but surely started to come back. And the very first one. I went to in August, I think of 2021. was Freaks on Parade. For that year, and that year was Rob Zombie. He’s the, that, that’s who like it usually flies under, and Alice Cooper. So that is Obviously not ZZ Top, but concerts had begun. Now I pinpoint that point in time, one, to say we’re out seeing concerts again, but This is also now just a little less than a month.

14:10 Dusty Hill had passed away. He had passed away a month prior to this. I know we’re talking about this is inspired by Frank Beard’s passing, but it’s important to. Talk about Dusty Hill passing away too, the first member. ZZ Top to pass away. If for some reason you don’t recognize the name, Dusty Hill is the bass player. You also did Accompanying vocals for most of Billy Gibbons’ songs. And he also sang I think it was a hit at one point. I’m not sure how far it was. It was he also sang Tush, which is also the second song. They sang on that Johnny Carson appearance I opened the show with. So right at that moment or that period of time that I kind of resided to the fact that I’m just not gonna. Be able to see ZZ Top because there, as far as I could see or understand, there was no ZZ Top and it was okay. It’s not like it was one of those opportunities that I kind of just went, ah, I’ll go see it. Them next time they’re around. I just never really had the opportunity. And it didn’t come around before. Concerts really started coming around Florida. So there was nothing to feel bad about, just a little disappointed. Like, that’s too bad. That’s kind of what it felt like.

15:19 Well it wasn’t too terribly long after this. I I don’t really have a timeline for this. But Footage started coming up of Elwood Francis playing post Dusty Hill’s passing. Now Elwood Francis. If you don’t know, that’s a name you may not know. He is at the time, he was their guitar technician since forever, since this whole story I’m telling basically. And he actually picked up the bass when Dusty got ill. So there was footage of Elwood Francis playing before this, but now these are shows post Dusty Hill Passing. So I’m learning slowly here that ZZ Top is continuing in some form or fashion. In fact, speaking of Elwood Francis, if you like sharing things like this, obviously, like the documentary, there is a fantastic Interview with some local radio station DJ, and I don’t know what city. I wish I could tell you, but I think if you put Elwood Francis and

16:21 guitar tour maybe or something like that in the YouTube. This is before this is while Dusty was still alive and well. Before the you’ll see, he has no beard. Elwood Francis has not been growing his beard, much like Dusty and Billy. And But he’s giving a walkthrough all of the equipment that he maintains and takes care of, and that Dusty and Billy were using on tour at the time. And there’s a. H each guitar literally has a story and there’s one story where he picks up these purple guitars that apparently were hollowed out and some kind of lights put in that Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill love, but he absolutely hated because they were hollowed out to put these lights in. And according to him, they sound they are the worst sounding Pieces of equipment on the entire guitar case. And it’s funny hearing him tell this story because he pulls no punches. But now, At this point. point of my story and my timeline and my history with ZZ Top, they’re touring again. Like, okay, and now I’m gonna keep my eyes open. Now this is a couple years ago, but I still largely kind of do the same thing I do looking for concerts. First of all, I get Ticketmaster and Live Nation emails out the like every day. And I think one out of 50 of them have a band I want to see, but at least they’re useful.

17:34 What I Of do is when I’m just thinking about it, I do this with Alice Cooper probably like once a month and BABYMETAL too, to be completely honest with you. I will just be like, Oh, I wonder if there’s any tour updates, and I’ll go to their website. And that is exactly what I did with ZZ Top. I was like, Oh, is there a Let’s see if there’s any kind of tour update on ZZ Top. And I looked. And lo and behold, there was one for Florida in Plant City at the Strawberry Festival, which sounds like kind of the um scene in Spinal Tap where it was uh they’re playing at Six Flags Puppet show, but it’s not. The Strawberry Festival in Plant City is a huge event. It’s a ginormous carnival light type thing. Uh the strawberry shortcake stands every you couldn’t you can’t throw a stone without hitting one and then they have this huge outdoor amphitheater. Which a lot of people, I don’t know, know how big this thing actually is. And that’s where they’re playing. They’re one of the headlining acts for one night. A lot of people played there. They always seemed to have the Oak Ridge Boys were like a fixture there every season. The thing goes on for like three weeks. And they have a concert, I think, almost every night. So they got a lot of names in there. I think the last one I saw, I didn’t see the concert, but the last one last time I was at the Strawberry Festival, the headliner there was Kevin Costner.

18:50 In his band, I don’t know what the Kevin Costner and the heavy lifting supporting cast or something like that. I don’t know. But he was the headliner that night. So I was like, okay, as my opportunity, I’m going to see them. It’s a little bit of a drive. It’s about 90 minutes from me, but there’s no Orlando dates, no Tampa dates. And that’s about, you know, if then I start going out. Have to go out the perimeter of that safety zone of driving. And they go, okay, Plant City, 90 minutes. I can do that. ZZ Top, I’ll do it. Got a ticket. And I will say This one thing that I just uh it’s worth telling because And it’s going to be a weird story, but The Strawberry Festival has our own ticketing system, no Live Nation, no Ticketmaster. So the price you see, it was I think$63 a ticket. And when I checked out, it was$63. It didn’t suddenly go up to$130 with all the fees and everything that you normally see. Like I said, their own ticketing system, the prices, what the price says, and what was super freaking cool.

19:53 And this, I don’t think this is unique to them, but for me, it was, I really enjoyed it. You put in how many tickets you want, and it immediately finds you the best seats. And they’re all the same price. So it’s not like, oh, here’s the best seats, the VIP second row for$732. It’s like, no, here, here’s. Here’s the ninth row. It’s dead center, one seat, sixty-three bucks. I was like, boom, I’ll take it. I mean, nine rows. I can’t complain being less than 10 rows away from a band I now wanted to see for a couple of years. Got the ticket, went to the show. It was what I really enjoy about seeing shows of kind of the age I’m at and the acts I’m seeing. Everyone there is there for the same reason to hear their favorite songs, to have a good time, and Not Beep. Out of control about it in any way, shape, or form. And everyone there was a probably a bigger ZZ Top fan than me, but I’m now a bigger ZZ Top fan than I was. Back in the 80s. So I’m very happy to be there as well. One funny thing about this.

20:55 Is that when they do Sharp Dressed Man? When they get to the stanza, every girl crazy about a sharp-dressed man, Billy, the song, the recorded song already stopped. All the instruments stopped: the drums and the guitars. When they do this live, Billy doesn’t sing the stanza. He lets the crowd sing it. And if you look up, Clips on that on YouTube, it’s fantastic because you hear thousands of people saying this line. We had thousands of people saying it too, but we were in an outdoor venue with no cover. So the sound directly goes up. You know, the path of least resistance for sound waves goes up. So it sounds like. Nobody’s barely. It sounds like we’re barely saying everything, even though sitting there, the experience was funny, or fun, I should say, but the video was funny. In fact, I have it. I still have it. I’m going to play the clip here. So you can kind of see what I’m talking about, how the sound gets lost. [Clip: Sharp Dressed Man, live]

22:04 But I will be the ring for myself. Believe me, sitting there, it was it was the it was the same experience you would see online inside a indoor venue. So Saw that show. It had a, it ended, the main show ended with legs. And the Encore had a song I can’t remember I know I recognized at the time, but I can’t remember what it is, but then the very last song was La Grange. Great show, great night. I went and got a strawberry shortcake, ate it on the way back to my car. And was extremely Happy to have seen them and ready to see them again. And I wasn’t expecting to see them at the Strawberry Festival. That’s why there was. Kind of events where if a band has played there before, they’re not going to be back for like four or five years. It’s like I said at some point in this whole rambling, they don’t ha they haven’t seemed to ever stop touring.

23:09 So I knew they were going to be somewhere I could get to eventually. And then Well was it? better part of a month ago at this point. Well, even longer than this. This was this was something building up. Dusty Hill’s whole. absence from the band. Passing away and went pretty fast. Frank Beard. Has been off tour for good. quite a bit and I think it was the Hollywood Bowl show they’re gonna do, which was is a huge Venue huge event. It was a Some kinda I think it was like as a as a Texas themed music almost festival or one night long show that they’re playing and they cancelled. And when they canceled, I was like, I that this is I know it’s not going to unfortunately be good and it wasn’t too long after that the announcement that Frank Beard had passed away. And that was I mean, I mean, it sucked. It’s it’s uh had now become a far bigger fan of All their music, all and all the members of the band than I ever had been before growing up with them. And now being able, then finally having that live connection, that kind of whole group.

24:20 Everybody in that audience was there to see this and experience it and have the same amount of fun. You know, it’s not going to happen the same way again. I mean, it may happen again. They may come back around. They have started doing live shows again with another drummer, but it’s always a little different. I mean, I don’t know what a Dusty Hill show was like. And there’s and Elwood Francis. Seemed to be having as much fun on stage as anybody else, and it that helped with the energy of the show, but I’m sure it’s probably different than what a What an original lineup of ZZ Top would have been. And now, when I do see them again, when I have the opportunity, it’s gonna be a little different again because now it’s down another member. And that’s just I mean the Is there a that you can do about it? Absolutely nothing other than just celebrate. Enjoy the memories and give their proper respect to Someone that was a part of something you really enjoy now. And that’s what Frank Beard was for me. I really, really enjoy ZZ Top’s music even more now.

25:20 in my older years and I did when they were at their when I was young. So Sad to see him go. Definitely, same way I felt when Dusty Hill passed away. I do appreciate the contribution and part of what he was with ZZ Top. I mean, it’s it’s I can’t even say he contributed to ZZ Top. He was. one of the three people that are ZZ top. It’s can’t really identify one without the others. So definitely saddened that he’s gone, but absolutely positively appreciate What he he brought. Music and Since he was part of Making that music, his drum lines, what I’m sure you would call those. What would he write out for music sheets for drums? I don’t know. But the drum tracks, I guess you could say, for his music are being replicated. So it is his work. being performed by somebody else, so if you get the chance. And you like any ZZ Top song. You should see them live. You gotta see them.

26:22 And at this point, while you can, because it is so much fun, and everyone there is going to be there for the same reason to have that much fun, hear their favorite song or songs, and just let everybody. Have the same amount of fun that they’re having. And that’s one of the unique things about this concert that I went to, and I did finally get to see them. And I’m hoping to see it one more time. That’s it. Thank you, Frank, for what you’ve done for music. Thank you for being a vital part of creating something I’ve now come to. Really enjoy. I don’t think it’s ever failed to get me out of a little bit of a bad mood or at least make my mood better when I hear a ZZ Top song. So Thank you for that and thank you for Dusty Hill as well. We should include him in this. And thanks, Dave, for having this opportunity for me to talk about my experience with ZZ Top and share what I think. Gotta see them live. So, all right. Thanks for listening. Hope that wasn’t too rambly. I’m sure it was, but that’s what I do here. So, until next time, I don’t know what Dave’s sign-off is. So, I will say what I always say. I’ll see you in that next episode.