ZZ Top Returns to Five Flags in Dubuque

Iconic rock & roll band ZZ TOP will return to Dubuque’s Five Flags Center for the first time in nearly 15 years as part of their ‘Raw Whisky’ Tour this summer. The August 23 concert will also feature special guest Gov’t Mule. Tickets to see ZZ TOP at Five Flags Center go on sale this Friday morning at 10:00 AM at the Five Flags Box Office or online via Ticketmaster. Members of the Five Flags Email Club have already received details about a special presale happening on Thursday.

About ZZ TOP:

ZZ TOP, also known as “That Little Ol’ Band From Texas,” has stake an undisputed claim to being the longest running major rock band with original personnel intact. The Texas trio of Billy F. Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. It’s a remarkable achievement that they stayed very much together after almost 50 years of rock, blues, and boogie on the road and in the studio. “Yeah,” says Billy, guitarist extraordinaire, “we’re the same guys, bashing out the same chords.”  With the release of each of their albums the band has explored new ground in terms of both their sonic approach and the material they’ve recorded. ZZ TOP is the same but always changing.

It was in Houston in the waning days of 1969 that ZZ TOP coalesced from the core of two rival bands, Billy’s Moving Sidewalks and Frank and Dusty’s American Blues. The new group went on to record the appropriately titled ZZ Top’s First Album and Rio Grande Mud that reflected their strong blues roots. Their third, 1973’s Tres Hombres, catapulted them to national attention with the hit “La Grange,” still one of the band’s signature pieces today. The song is unabashed elemental boogie, celebrating the institution that came to be known as “the best little whorehouse in Texas.” Their next hit was “Tush,” a song about, well, let’s just say the pursuit of “the good life” that was featured on their Fandango! album, released in 1975. The band’s momentum and success built during its first decade, culminating in the legendary “World Wide Texas Tour,” a production that included a longhorn steer, a buffalo, buzzards, rattlesnakes and a Texas-shaped stage. As a touring unit, they’ve been without peer over the years, having performed before millions of fans through North America on numerous tours as well as overseas where they’ve enthralled audiences from Slovenia to Argentina, from Australia to Sweden, from Russia to Japan and most points in between. Their iconography – beards, cars, girls and that magic keychain – seems to transcend all bounds of geography and language.

About Gov’t Mule:

One wouldn’t think that in a career spanning more than 25 years and some 20 live and studio albums, there could possibly be anything left for a band to accomplish that could be considered a first. And when that band is Gov’t Mule, a group known for pushing the parameters while melding a variety of genres — rock, R&B, jam, funk, jazz, and practically everything in-between — it’s even more astonishing to think there’s anything that hasn’t already been attempted.

Indeed, Gov’t Mule have never been known to rest on their laurels or shy away from a new challenge. Theirs is a sound that feeds off spontaneity and improvisation, a signature style that pays little heed to expectation, predictability, or needless repetition.