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ZZ Top’s Live CD follows the Afterburner of the DVD

A few months back I posted a review on ZZ Top’s Live From Texas DVD.  The 17 song concert was a great show, and one that I missed, unfortunately. Now, Eagle Records has released the CD, which contains a coupe of differences. The covers are the same and the insert booklets are very similar in imagery and text. The CD contains 16 songs, but one of these is the “Blues Intro” which precedes “Blue Jean Blues.” It’s on the DVD as well, but just not listed and chaptered in that manner. So in reality there are two more songs on the DVD that the CD didn’t have room to include: “Pin Cushion” and “Heard It On The X.”

The difference between listening to ZZ Top on CD and watching them on DVD is that one is not distracted by the lights, fuzzy guitars and video screen imagery. It’s easier to focus on the adept Blues playing and how this trio has rocked for 40 years. Despite playing some of these songs such as “Tush” and “”La Grange” since the early ‘70s, Frank, Dusty and Reverend Billy still know how to do a little ad lib and change the songs up here and there to give them a sparkle beyond what one has heard on the studio LPs and CDs.

As mentioned in the DVD review, Gibbons voice has a gotten a bit raspier over the years, giving it a smokey quality that makes him sound more like some of his Blues predecessors - old black men who played on street corners and the corners of their porch in the middle of a cotton field. This only adds to the coolness of ZZ’s sound.

There are plenty of other classics and hits on the CD such as “Got Me Under Pressure,”  “Just Got Paid,” “Pearl Necklace,” a song in which the band hints around to the audience about what kind of jewelry their woman really likes, “ Tube Snake Boogie,” “Legs”  and plenty of others.

The sound quality is excellent, the band is still in great form and Live From Texas rocks.

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