Classic Rock Zz Top, Loverboy Find Greatest Audience Response To Their More Familiar Songs

ZZ Top Sunday, Sept. 7, the Arena

When ZZ Top and Loverboy showed up at the Spokane Arena Sunday, it was an evening packed with classic rock hits.

And it’s a good thing, because that’s what the crowd wanted to hear.

ZZ Top trotted out “Legs,” “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Tush.”

From Loverboy came “Turn Me Loose,” “Working For the Weekend” and “Lovin’ Every Minute of It.”

These songs jolted the audience to life as if a buzzer had gone off in their arena seats.

But when the two bands, especially Loverboy, swung into lesser-known fare from their newer albums, the audience sagged back to their chair-warming posture.

Loverboy started off the evening by running through a set that managed to touch on every classic rock cliche in the book.

Frontman Mike Reno, looking like an overstuffed squirrel in black jeans, sang about a girl who is “every mother’s nightmare/every schoolboy’s dream.”

“Do you wanna get lucky?” came a line from another song.

And, of course, there was the band’s seminal 1983 hit about “Hot Girls In Love.”

Oh, please. They may be classics, but that doesn’t mean they’re classy.

Even a tune from their newest album called “Waiting for the Night” sported uninspired lyrics such as “The night time is the right time/I’m just looking for a good time.”

Their hit, “The Kid Is Hot Tonight,” at one point asks, “Do you like the way he rocks and the way he rolls?”

My answer: no.

The ZZ Top trio, however, were the charmers of the evening, with guitarist Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill smoothing their trademark beards, now gone gracefully gray.

ZZ Top’s show was far tamer than in years past. Previous stages held cages full of rattlers, buzzards and longhorn steer. Adorning Sunday’s stage were two tiki-style huts that the men emerged from and then left through.

There were no high-energy antics from the frontmen, now 48 years old. But the duo’s unpretentious nature was a nice touch as they beguiled the audience with their in-sync shuffled two-step and playful interaction.

Their set was heavy on the old stuff, hard-drivin’ rock pregnant with raw blues lines. The crowd jumped to its feet immediately as they opened with “Got Me Under Pressure” and moved through favorites like “Cheap Sunglasses,” “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” and “My Head’s in Mississippi.”

For “Legs” they broke out matching white fuzzy guitars that found the crowd stamping their feet like a giant colony of marching ants.

The only problem with ZZ Top is that all of its songs tend to sound too much like - well - ZZ Top.

A solid new song like “Rhythmeen” off its latest album was largely lost on the audience as it blended and then faded in with the rest of the band’s signature distortion-thick style.

Certainly ZZ Top’s set did little to advance the band’s repertoire. But for its fans, an evening of looking back was all they seemed to need.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo