Music

Over the Top? Nah

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ZZ Top offers definitive proof: Facial hair and rock and roll are timeless.

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From the Calendar
ZZ Top at The Riviera Comedy Club
March 24-30, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.
$25. 794-9433.
Beyond the Weekly
ZZ Top

Never mind the beards, these guys have legs. Yeah, ZZ Top is a Texas mile past their hit-making years, and maybe you think Billy G. and the boys are just another classic-rock act eking out a few bucks on a lock-up-your-grandmas tour attended mainly by aging fans of facial-hair kitsch. Whatever, dude. Truth is, their best stuff has real staying power. “My Head’s in Mississippi,” “La Grange,” “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide”—the authentic blues grit dusting the grooves acts as a kind of extended-life warranty; because it turns out there really is something timeless about rolling down the road in some cold blue steel, with a bluesman in the back and a beautician at the wheel. And Billy Gibbons is such a goddamn good guitarist he’ll surely crank up the Top’s lesser ’80s novelty fluff—“Legs,” “Sharp-Dressed Man”—into something pretty crazy in concert. (Nothing can save “TV Dinners,” however.) Just don’t wave your lighters too close to their faces.

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