It’s a grueling itinerary, from New York City to London by way of Nashville, then on to L.A. and San Paolo with stopovers in Berlin, Paris, Dallas, and Rome. There’s a few side trips along the way to take in Chicago, Vancouver,Vegas, and Houston as well. You probably wouldn’t want to book this trip solo, but with Z Z Top along for the ride, it’s an interesting journey.
The band’s first live album in nearly half a century captures everything that’s made a legion of rabid fans worldwide still come out for more. “Legs” has never sounded sharper, spike heels clattering across Frank Beard’s drum kit as Gibbons’ guitar threatens to overload from his string-bending tribute to shapely gams.
“I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” lives up to its reputation, the folks at this Vancouver concert as familiar with the chorus and as eager to sing along with it as the folks back home always have been. Gibbons still make you think his amp is gonna blow a 50 amp fuse and explode from all the distortion, but he always reins it in just before the smoldering tubes are about to shatter.
“Jesus Just Left Chicago” plays just as well in Nashville, eliciting a roar from the audience when Gibbons changes up the lyrics so Jesus takes a jump through Nashville instead of Mississippi on his way to Cali, but James Harman’s bluesy harp keeps the song’s Chicago roots intact.
Even a jaded L.A. crowd gets their heads turned by this sharp-edged rendition of “Sharp Dressed Man,” going nuts after the song reduces the initial nattily-clad protagonist to a sweaty pile of cast off clothes.
The wild card in this deck is “Sixteen Tons.” Merle Travis wrote the song in ’46 when his label, Capitol records, wanted to cash in on Burl Ives folky success. Travis came up with the coal mining angle overnight, drawing on his father’s work history in the coal mines of Muhlenburg county,Kentucky. The chorus, “You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt,” came from a letter his brother wrote him about the hopeless task of combat reporting just after famed WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle ‘s death. Travis also used a remark his coal miner father often made:”I can’t afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store,” alluding to the fact that he was so far in debt to his employers for the food and supplies he had bought from the coal mine owned store that he could never get out alive. Ironically, Travis was blacklisted, labeled a communist for writing the song and refused airplay in many stations when his version came out, but when Tennessee Ernie recorded it nearly a decade later, it became the fastest selling single in Capitol‘s history, selling a million records in 24 days. The band brings up Jeff Beck for this version from their London setlist. It’s much heavier than Ford’s, Topped up, sludged down and blasted out of the bedrock by Gibbons and Beck’s piercing, rock-breaking guitar antics.
You’ve heard it all before, but it never sounded better, live or in the studio. And it keeps on rollin’- see and hear it for yourself with the band on tour nationwide through November 12.
