Peace seemed to have returned for a while after the enormous fuss surrounding the performances of Taylor Swift, currently the most popular act in the world, which took place here a few days ago.
Hundreds of ‘Swifties’, as the fans are affectionately known, had even arrived with full camping equipment to set up a tent camp. Some were even prepared to bare their breasts in the presence of a PowNed camper team for a ‘meet & greet’ with the pop icon who helped them through periods of depression. Anyone who was on the forecourt of the Arena Boulevard on Monday afternoon now saw beer-drinking, mainly middle-aged men everywhere, dressed in a T-shirt of their favorite band.
ZZ TOP celebrated its fiftieth anniversary a few years ago but is still active and they don’t want to miss that for anything. The band that in the past was never so strict with their preference for feminine beauty, often Texan, blond hair and shapely, and liked to show this in a way that we can no longer imagine today.
These men don’t care about that at all, for them tonight it’s all about steaming boogie blues, rock, lots of beer and loudly shouting ambiguous lyrics like in the naughty ‘Legs’ or the mischievous ‘Tubesnake Boogie’.
To get the already warmed-up audience in the right mood, the men of SLOPER were allowed to perform first and so at exactly 8 p.m. the impressive, heavy rock of ‘Mind Melter’ sounds.
For those who have not heard of the band before, Sloper is a band around drummers Mario Goossens, known from Triggerfinger and Cesar Zuiderwijk, the drummer who has already played the very last concert with Golden Earring without realizing it.
With guitarist Fabio Canini and newcomers singer Jan Bas and Bas Soetens on bass, you can safely speak of a diverse group that always manages to impress with a colorful mix of raw blues and wonderfully dirty rock.
Like The Black Keys in their early days, this is what ‘Painting Open Windows’ sounds like, while ‘Struck By Lightning’ would not have been out of place in the set during their last performance two months ago in the adjacent Ziggo Dome. We don’t know whether lightning actually struck, but there seems to be a problem with the light show.
Even at the bar there is more light than on the stage. Strange and not very respectful, but on the other hand the band sounds powerful and convincing. Especially when Bas stretches his vocal cords, groans and groans like Robert Plant in his best times during the title track of the album ‘Pulverise’, the drummers once again deliver a tight beat in complete synchronization and the audience carefully lets themselves go to the catchy rocker.
Daring and downright successful is the rendition of Tommy James’ ‘I’m Alive’, which gained some fame in the second chance through a commercial, but to which Sloper has managed to give an interesting twist of his own tonight. Sloper has delivered an excellent calling card here and takes the opportunity to announce that album number two will be released in October.
Some adjustments are made on stage while the audience is entertained with classics such as ‘Boogie Chillin’ by John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley’s ‘Bring It To Jerome’, a song about the camaraderie of two friends and the respect for each other. Little of the latter was evident tonight as it turns out that the lights on stage are functioning perfectly.
The men of ZZ TOP have apparently forgotten that the Dutch drummer from the support act scored a bizarre hit in their home country in the mid-seventies with ‘Radar Love’ and then led the way during a tour in the US in which the Texan trio only had a played a supporting role. A little appreciation would have been in order.
When the cheerful TexMex sounds of ‘(Hey Baby) Que Paso’ by The Texas Tornadoes are turned off, it is exactly nine o’clock and everyone in the sold-out hall knows exactly what awaits.
ZZ TOP has played here four times before, but that was when the AFAS was still called Heineken Music Hall. The biggest difference from the last time in 2016 is that Dusty Hill no longer provides the low tones on four strings, the man whose right hand Billy Gibbons once suspected had become fused with a fuzz box, but has been replaced by Elwood Francis, guitar technician of the band and since the death of Dusty Hill in 2021, the band’s regular bass player.
Where Hill mastered a dominant Blues Shuffle in C on bass like no other, we see Francis in the usual opener ‘Got Me Under Pressure’ on a 17-string Fender bass. Less subtle but rock solid, he quickly and quite easily mastered the well-known work made his own by the band and implemented it in his own way. It appears to have been an excellent solution for the Texans who have been in the extra time of their career for several years.
You can plan in advance how the trio will manifest themselves on stage and what it will approximately look like. Dutiful but also Texan stylish, so over the top, beautiful things, cool sunglasses and smooth but small steps and movements that are sometimes even performed simultaneously to the beat of the music. All this within just a few square meters.
Frank Beard is concentrated and often bent over behind his enormous drum kit, while Elwood keeps a close eye on where Gibbons is musically with his solid and massive guitar sound. The well-known ‘I Thank You’ from Sam & Dave is included again after a long time, but the fans of the first hour really notice ‘Waiting for the bus’ and ‘Jesus Just Left Chicago’.
The most recent track dates from 2012 and is ‘I Gotsta Get Paid’, which has its origins in a hip-hop song and in which Gibbons portrays himself as a money-hungry ‘hustler’ who wants to rake in big mountains with his music, a fact that is not very far away. is removed from reality when you see the ticket prices paid for this evening.
The band hasn’t had much news to report for a long time and anyone who compares previous performances with what is happening here will have to admit that it is all becoming very predictable.
The strength, however, is the quality of the classics that never seem to get boring. When the intro to ‘Gimme All Your Loving’ starts, you can almost see the Ford Coupé, which also adorns the album cover of ‘Eliminator’, driving in the distance and we all know what can get out of it. There is not much interaction with the audience, with the exception of a “Yeah, it’s blues time” and “Amsterdam!!! “My Head’s In Mississippi” which always seemed to fit in seamlessly with the work on the above-mentioned album.
Although the sound, quite unusual even by AFAS standards, is quite resonant, it is always fascinating to see how smoothly Gibbons grooves and passionately throws out his solos, fortunately not paying attention to a minute more or less. In addition to the loss of Dusty, the loss of his friend Jeff Beck also had a major impact on Gibbons and tonight ‘Sixteen Tons’ is dedicated to the legendary British guitar hero. Gibbons actually seems to put an extra dash of emotion into his playing.
As always, ZZ TOP gives the audience what they came for and with strong assets such as ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ and ‘Legs’ behind them, the band can rely on a strong set without weak moments.
After a short interruption, the finale starts with ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Tube Snake Boogie’ and ‘La Grange’ and the band has provided more than 5,000 fans with a wonderful evening. If this was the very last time, it will be with pleasure and satisfaction look back on this performance.
