18/05/2025

ZZ Top & George Thorogood & The Destroyers – Spark Arena: May 17, 2025

ZZ Top and George Thorogood & The Destroyers brought some good old fashioned rock & roll, with a healthy serving of the blues to Auckland’s Spark Arena. The 13th Floor’s Oxford Lamoureaux was there and reports back…

Well – damn, son. I feel a little bit dirty, baptised with bourbon-soaked rock ‘n’ roll, and like I’ve had my love of both music and live concerts revitalised with a sparkling, sequined car battery. Hoooo Weeee.

There’s a certain kind of feeling you chase when you go to a rock gig. Not a polite sway-your-beer-to-the-beat in a beachside backyard feeling. I’m talking about the full-body, sweat-on-your-damned-soul kind of energy that filthy and unfiltered rock ‘n’ roll provides. The kind that hits low in the gut and growls its way up into your brain. And last night at Spark Arena, George Thorogood & The Destroyers, followed by the mighty ZZ Top, didn’t just deliver that feeling – they drained it into a shot glass, raised it in the air, and poured that rock energy straight down our throats and set it on fire.

This was pure, undiluted, sparkle-drenched rock heaven. And somehow – against all known rules of time, physics, and tendon health – both bands, with members clocking in at 70+ years of age, managed to put on a show that had more energy, groove, and joy than most twenty-somethings could muster on a best-of TikTok reel.

George Thorogood & The Destroyers

Let’s start with the unexpected truth: George Thorogood might just be the best opening act I’ve ever seen – and that’s a wild thing for me to feel so confident in saying. No disrespect to any support band in the last decade, but this wasn’t a warm-up – this was a gig in itself – and I could have happily finished the night afterwards without an ounce of regret.

From the moment they launched into their set, the entire arena shifted into gear. The Destroyers’ sound was perfect, incredibly polished, to the point where it felt like a studio album, but played with the raw, loose-limbed confidence of a band that’s survived every music trend the world’s thrown at them and still come out with a grin and a bottle of bourbon.

Who Do You Love? was tight, filthy, and deliciously swampy. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer turned into a full-blown storytelling epic, with Thorogood pacing like a man possessed – part preacher, part troublemaker, all charisma. Get A Haircut made me question my life choices, and Bad to the Bone still hits like a freight train made of sweat and snark and pure, delightfully grimy attitude.

Every track landed. Every riff was timed perfectly. And for a band that could easily be just phoning it in at this point, they played like they’d just been unchained from a bar fight, like they reached a peak in their prime and just said ‘why don’t we just keep going, forever?’. I half expected them to light the stage on fire and just walk away.

ZZ Top

After a short intermission of around 20 minutes, the stage went dark, the spotlights dotted around the stage and out into the crowd, and out strolled ZZ Top – casually, like they’d just stepped out of a hot-pink cadillac. (Side note: Incredible effort and all my praise to whoever organised vintage Hotrods to decorate the exterior of Spark Arena last night and made me fall in love with them all over again)

From the opening riff of Got Me Under Pressure, it was clear this wasn’t going to be a nostalgia act. This was three guys – Billy Gibbons, Elwood Francis, and stand-in drummer John Douglas – who just love playing their music, have always loved the music, and still love playing this music for arenas of fans. It was an almost tangible energy infectious and contagious and dizzying in the best way.

Gibbons’ voice was gravelly and sharp, that distinct ZZ Top growl still intact and loaded with swagger. Elwood Francis – wielding that absurd yellow 17-string mutant guitar at one point – looked like a Southern-fried anime character, and I mean that as a compliment. John Douglas, stepping in for the legendary Frank Beard (absent due to medical issues), was rock-solid and felt like part of the fabric. Not a fill-in. Not a maybe. Just… right.

What stood out most wasn’t the perfection – it was the ease. This wasn’t a band trying to impress. It was a band that already knows they’re cool, playing their hearts out for an arena full of people who showed up to feel something.

And I’ll be damned if we didn’t feel that from the moment they walked on stage.

Early songs had the GA floor (seated, which I’ll admit I’m not a massive fan of, but somehow this looked and worked perfectly) swaying like we were all part of some Texan gospel revival. ZZ Top oozed with bluesy soul, effortlessly cool in that way you can’t fake.

But when they kicked into the Big Three towards the end of the set, first with Sharp Dressed Man and Legs, (before dashing off stage for an incredible outfit change) and the encore-closing La Grange – it felt like something shifted in me and the crowd.

Suddenly we were all teenagers again – I couldn’t get Almost Famous out of my mind, I felt deliciously grimy, expressive, and free of feeling self-conscious. Gibbons strutted. Elwood broke out the sheepskin guitars for Legs and everyone lost their damn minds. And La Grange? That opening riff might as well be a religious experience at this point. A guitar sermon. A Texan exorcism drenched and dripping in honey-sweet bourbon.

The visuals were slick but never overbearing – pink sparkly jackets for the encore, a guitar with an LED screen flashing hypnotic patterns, and a stage that managed to feel both massive and intimate. They didn’t need pyro or theatrics. Just three guys, some deeply irresistible and sexy guitar tones, and a crowd that was very ready to scream along.

There’s something sacred about a night like this. Not in a literal sense, but in how music like this lives in your mind and body long after you leave the gig. It’s like muscle memory, reviving something that you’ve felt many times before for many different reasons – it’s boot-thumping, beer-spilling, elbow-grinding bliss.

What struck me, over and over, was how present everyone felt. Barely any phones in the air. No one checking out, zoning out, or freaking out. Just a thousand or so people remembering that the best nights of your life often come with guitars, grit, and guys that just don’t quit.

There was no filler. No low point. No moment where you felt they were going through the motions. Both bands played like they still love what they do – and that love soaked through the walls of Spark Arena.

It’s rare to get one band that delivers on every level. It’s unheard of to get two. But last night, first George Thorogood & The Destroyers and then ZZ Top turned Auckland into a roaring, sweat-slicked, guitar-loving time capsule of what made rock great in the first place.

And when it was over, and the crowd stumbled out into the cool night air, ears ringing and souls full? You could feel it: That little electric hum in the chest. That sacred ache of a night spent too loud, too alive, and too damn good to forget.

Long live the riff, and may this particular flavour of immortal Rock ‘n’ Roll never leave us. Hoooo Weeee.

Oxford Lamoureaux

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:

ZZ Top: