Billy Gibbons Wraps Up BFG’s Run As ZZ Top ‘Elevation’ Tour Resumes

Since 2015, ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons has embarked upon a unique solo career, using his rare time away from Texas’ favorite beer drinkers and hell raisers to explore an array of diverse, often percussion heavy sounds.

His 2015 solo debut Perfectamundo found the lauded blues guitarist channeling his childhood studies alongside legendary Puerto Rican songwriter and bandleader Tito Puente as he experimented with an array of Afro-Cuban sounds, with 2018’s The Big Bad Blues giving way to Hardware three years later, a more rock leaning affair.

With ZZ Top in the midst of their “Elevation” tour, a run which resumes this Wednesday, March 26 in Tifton, Georgia, Gibbons wrapped up a solo run of the U.S. last month, one which found him backed by The BFG’s (featuring Chris Layton of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble on drums and pianist/bassist Mike Flanigin, who tickled the ivories on both Perfectamundo and The Big Bad Blues).

Interestingly enough, Gibbons eschewed almost all of the solo material in Chicago, offering up a blistering set of ZZ Top alongside a handful of well chosen covers on stage at Park West.

“Everybody ready to have a good time tonight?” asked Gibbons rhetorically in his guise as the evening’s emcee, setting up an opening jam session between the uber-tight trio. “Mike Flanigin on the organ!” shouted Gibbons, looking left with a smile at the group’s secret weapon.

Leaning back and to his right, Gibbons jousted playfully with Flanigin as the pair, clad in matching Nudie suits, made their way through “Jesus Just Left Chicago,” with Flanigin swaying in time with Gibbons following a shift to the bass out of apt opener “Waitin’ for the Bus.”

“Y’all know I’ve been waitin’ out on that bus,” said Gibbons with a sly smirk. “Have mercy…” growled the guitarist with a wink.

Flanigin moved from keys to organ and over to bass repeatedly over the course of about 80 minutes, joining Gibbons on the vocal for “Gimme All Your Lovin’” before revisiting 1979’s Degüello.

“Are we having a good time tonight?” asked Gibbons on stage in Chicago. “Wowee, that’s a happy crowd!” noticed the frontman, assessing a red hot response from the sold out Windy City faithful. “We are glad to be here. Y’all got a great room here, man!” said Gibbons, shouting out an intimate club with a capacity of just about 1,000, a theater with vaudeville roots dating back to the early 1900s. “They came out and greeted us and said, ‘You can do almost anything you want…’” mused Gibbons of his arrival. “I said, ‘What’s the almost?’” he continued, recounting the humorous exchange. “They said, ‘No drinking during the gospel songs.’ And I said, ‘Well, we ain’t doing no gospel songs!’”

With Flanigin on organ they could’ve – but opted instead for “Cheap Sunglasses,” with Gibbons, one of rock’s most treasured storytellers, waxing philosophic on the concept of the dollar store as he set up the cut.

Thanks to Layton, “Cheap Sunglasses” chugged along like a freight train, with Flanigin pointing directly at the drummer midway through.

“Golly, let’s do some blues…” said Gibbons, clearly having fun as the trio put their spin upon Slim Harpo’s “I Got Love if You Want It,” the opening track from his 2015 solo debut. “I recorded this song… and I think I remember the words,” said the guitarist with a chuckle.

Back on organ, Flanigin was a delight on the old school blues track, supplying a danceable groove as Gibbons stared daggers, eventually walking over with a towel to fan the scorching player.

“Blue Jean Blues” followed, with the BFG’s moving to a more contemplative tone as Gibbons delivered the song’s trademark combination of storytelling and soulful picking during one of the evening’s most rewarding stretches of live music.

“I got a confession to make…” sang Gibbons, slowing things down momentarily as the audience quieted down, waiting for the incendiary solo to follow. “She sure looked good in those blue jeans,” confided the guitarist, leaning back as he began to wail with the crowd exploding in response.

Gibbons, 75, has long regaled audiences with tales of Jimi Hendrix, for whom he opened as singer and guitarist of the Moving Sidewalks prior to forming ZZ Top, with Hendrix famously teaching him how to recreate the legendary opening to “Foxy Lady.”

“Hendrix came to see Moving Sidewalks…” Gibbons began, explaining how the group worked up a pair of Hendrix classics (“Purple Haze” and “Foxy Lady”) during the set – despite their positioning as his opening act. “You got a lotta nerve!” he recalled, citing Hendrix’s response to the stunt. “And that’s how I became friends with Jimi Hendrix!” said Gibbons, finishing up the story. “He taught me this one,” continued the guitarist as he offered up the trio’s take on “Foxy Lady,” delivering the uniquely reverberating intro.

Flanigin delivered a pulsing bassline as Gibbons crouched down late, shimmying and swaying as he slayed a solo during “Sharp Dressed Man,” with the Texas trio heading for home on stage in Chicago.

“Backstage I said, ‘We gotta do that thang…’” said Gibbons with inimitable swagger. “West Texas town,” he growled as the group closed the main set with “La Grange.”

Back on bass, Flanigin sauntered left, locking in with Layton before returning to center stage where he swayed in sync with Gibbons during a generously elongated middle section of the Tres Hombres classic. Gibbons stopped, stalking the stage while cupping both ears, eating up the applause before kicking back in to close the iconic ZZ Top cut.

“We’ve done a lot of rock and roll, some blues – now we’re gonna do a country song,” said Gibbons to open the encore. “A little Johnny Cash!”

Once again, the power of the Layton/Flanigin rhythm section was on full display throughout the country classic as Gibbons and company returned to the stage.

Things turned raucous fast as Gibbons strummed in the intro to “Brown Sugar.” Flanigin egged on the crowd, who clapped along early, before wrapping up with “Thunderbird.”

“I said, ‘Lock that door! We can’t leave yet!’” quipped Billy Gibbons as the evening entered its final moments. “We’re in Chicago!” said the engaging frontman to rapturous applause. “That’s right,” nodded the guitarist in agreement.