May 21, 2004
Me and ZZ
So my brother J- called tonight [I am no longer allowed to reference his name] and told me Rolling Stone had a Best Of article. Seems, among other things, they asked Dusty Hill, bassist and singer for ZZ Top, what his favorite venue was. Said Dusty: The Warehouse in New Orleans. Too bad it's gone now.
Oh, ho, says I. I say that, really. Oh, ho. I also say things like Behold the merriment!, but only if I'm sloshed and working an angle on a barmaid. But I digress.
I'm glad Dusty said that, because I saw ZZ Top in 1973 at the Warehouse at the tender age of 16, and that concert is still in my top, uh, one.
My older brother, R-, not to be confused with my younger brother [who abhors any mention of himself on this site without remuneration, being an attorney] and I drove to Picayune, Mississippi in June of 1973 to visit some friends. Good people, as far as Cajun cornholers go, and they had tickets to see ZZ Top at the Warehouse.
At this point ZZ had recorded Tres Hombres, but it was still several weeks away from release. They were exercising the tunes, however, crafting the Big World Tour they anticipated.
I'd never heard of them, nor had the rest of civilization. They were a Texas bar band with a following in NOLA. Billy Gibbons was so young he couldn't even grow a beard yet. [I've blogged on this before, but I'm way too lazy to link to it, and it was pedestrian work on my part, anyway.]
The Warehouse was a private club, a converted cotton warehouse, and you could drink, smoke, crawl into the rafters, whatever. The opening act was Spooky Tooth, and I knew that band somewhat, but when ZZ hit the stage about 11pm the crowd surged forward. Some girl had passed out with her head in my lap, but I had to go with the flow, and I distinctly remember the hard harsh thud of her head hitting concrete as I bolted. Bummer, I said. Bummer.
They opened with Waitin' For The Bus, and rolled right into the rest of Tres Hombres. It was magical shit, to me. Billy channeled Bo Diddley that night.
I wax far too lengthy here, and I am about to break a cardinal rule: I don't do music critic. If I go down that path I will soon be deconstructing the stylings of Diana Krall for cheap currency from the local alternative rag. Nay, sir. Nay.
I shall cut to the chase. We left at 3am, ZZ still on stage and game; friends later told us they played until 6am. As an aside: we found a baggie with 6 joints rolled in strawberry papers right before ZZ came on, which we smoked throughout the show.
When I returned to Savannah I went to Crazy Jack Gilmore's record store and tried to buy the album. Crazy Jack thought I was crazy. It arrived two weeks later, and, unfortunately, the rest of the story is corrupted by ZZ. Sharp Dressed Man. Legs. Hell, they fired their drummer for a while and went with disco drums. Heresy. Fucking heresy.
But on a hot night in New Orleans, in a steamy old cotton warehouse, with no money in my pockets and some bootleg reefer, I saw the greatest show of my life.