ZZ Top in Irving

ZZ Top are an American blues-rock band formed in Houston in 1969 and long identified with guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard. Their tightly wound boogie and electric blues produced songs including “La Grange,” “Tush,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’” and “Sharp Dressed Man,” while the albums Tres Hombres and Eliminator became central to their catalogue. The Worldwide Texas Tour of 1976 and 1977 used a Texas-shaped stage and incorporated live animals into its production. The band later returned to arenas on the Afterburner World Tour and marked five decades with the 50th Anniversary Tour in 2019. After Hill’s death in 2021, longtime guitar technician Elwood Francis took over bass duties for the band’s concerts. The band plays most often in the United States and has returned repeatedly to the United Kingdom and Germany for tours and festival appearances.

Cheap Trick is an American rock band formed in Rockford, Illinois, in 1973. Its power pop and hard rock catalogue includes the albums In Color, Heaven Tonight and Dream Police, as well as “Surrender,” “I Want You to Want Me” and “The Flame.” Cheap Trick’s 1978 concerts at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo produced the live album Cheap Trick at Budokan. Twenty years later, the band played four nights at Metro in Chicago, performing its first four albums in sequence; recordings from those concerts appeared on Music for Hangovers. In 2017, Cheap Trick played North American amphitheatres as part of Foreigner’s 40th Anniversary Tour.