The stage is sparse and perfectly symmetrical: a low drum riser with Frank Beard’s huge kit in the middle, flanked by a pair of screens. Outside each screen stands a matching amp and speaker cab. At the front of the stage, a few feet apart, are the gleaming chrome mic stands for Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill, and in each of the two front corners stands a single monitor, almost certainly there for framing rather than practical purposes. Gibbons and Hill even play matching instruments for most of the set – a carefully and identically battered red guitar and bass.
All of which is to say that ZZ Top give careful thought to what they do, even if the excessive stage productions of previous tours have been put behind them. And for a band often characterised as mindless boogie merchants, there’s a slyness to their playing. Though Gibbons plays without any guitar pedals to control the tone, he can switch from his sludgy, dirty blues sound to the smooth, radio-friendly sheen of Gimme All Your Lovin’ effortlessly. It all sounds fantastic, too – Wembley, long a boomy graveyard for bands, appears to have revamped its soundsystem since its change in management.
While it’s a shame that an 18-song set from a 45-year career includes three covers – a mid-set pairing of Hendrix’s Foxy Lady and Robert Petway’s Catfish Blues might reflect their heroes, but seems spectacularly pointless – the highpoints are fabulous. The 2012 single I Gotsta Get Paid, which combined Houston rap with Lightnin’ Hopkins, sounds like nothing anyone else has ever recorded, and the group make their showmanship count by being so low-key that every gesture registers.
Jeff Beck is brought out to celebrate his 71st birthday for the encore, and given a birthday cake, and ZZ Top demonstrate another facet of their oeuvre with the power ballad Rough Boy, which is a startling contrast to the rest of the set, but it’s a rare foray into melancholy that sounds terrific.
