'Gritty' and 'groovy': Joe Perry Project teams up with ZZ Top for Boston shows

There are few things in life or rock 'n' roll as reliable as a ZZ Top concert. That was crystal clear July 22 at Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston, where the trio from Texas delivered the same kind of gritty blues-rock heat they’ve been bringing – as guitarist Billy Gibbons noted – for five decades to a jubilant crowd of about 4,000 fans. ZZ Top played 16 songs in their 80-minute set, drawing from seven different albums and all periods of their lengthy career, and the scope of their career was as impressive as the age range of the crowd.

There is of course some curiosity to this summer’s tour.  The iconic trio lost one of its founding members last year when bassist Dusty Hill died at 72.  As Hill had wanted, longtime band tech Elwood Francis took over on bass, and judging from Friday’s show it has been a seamless transition. Francis has grown a foot-long gray beard to uphold the band’s image and his thick mane of gray hair – standing up like a rooster’s comb despite the heat – adds to the trio’s scruffy image.

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ZZ Top’s stock in trade is playing basic blues-rock, yet making it pop-friendly. That is partly because of the superb rhythm section’s power with drummer Frank Beard (the one beardless member) and Hill (now Francis). And it’s partly because Gibbons is such an effortlessly melodic guitarist whose solos are usually short and concise, yet whose riffs are infectious hooks all by themselves. When all those elements come together, ZZ Top creates an undeniable groove and it was funny Friday to see people in their 20s boogying along to deep blues riffs their parents probably loved.

After a brisk opening with “Got Me Under Pressure,” ZZ Top slipped into a slower tempo stretch, including an unrushed roadhouse take on Sam & Dave’s “I Thank You.” That three-song sequence was all about the sizzle, but the fire came soon enough on “Gimme All Your Lovin’” and then “Pearl Necklace,” which was much more straight-ahead rock. Gibbons strutted his six-string stuff on “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” a grinder that never got much beyond midtempo, yet had the audience ecstatic.

Whether it was the talking blues of “I Gotsta Get Paid” or the stop-time riffs of “My Head Is in Mississippi,” Gibbons, 72, was every bit the riveting frontman. While the first half of the set saw the band playing light-green guitars, red ones replaced them for the slide-flavored “Just Got Paid." And if the coordinated dance moves of “Sharp Dressed Man” still delighted, the white-fur trimmed guitars for “Legs” had the crowd roaring. The encore was a three-song run that peaked with the rollicking “Tube Snake Boogie” and the band’s signature “La Grange,” a song every bit as gritty and groovy as it was when it first appeared in 1973.

Joe Perry back in Boston

Opening Friday night’s show was The Joe Perry Project, and as the Aerosmith guitarist noted, their tour had them in Brazil 72 hours previous. The night before the Boston show they headlined the Hampton Beach Casino and Saturday they headlined an Atlantic City casino and played lengthy two-hour shows at both. But Friday’s set as openers was held to an hour, and the Joe Perry Project squeezed in a dozen songs, including some of their previous tunes, some Aerosmith favorites and some new Perry cuts.

This version of the Project was heavily weighted to The Hollywood Vampires, the group focused on Perry, Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper. Bassist Chris Wyse and keyboardist Buck Johnson come from the Vampires band and drummer Jason Sutter (replacing Boston’s Joe Pet, a Project mainstay, sidelined by health problems this summer) is a Californian who’s played with Cher, among many others. Returning on vocals was Extreme’s Gary Cherone, and he was an energetic and engaging frontman despite the heat and humidity.

Naturally the crowd went nuts for Aerosmith nuggets like “Same Old Song and Dance,” but the breakneck pace of the new “Aye Aye Aye” was a real eye opener. Perry, 71, in black jeans and vest, looked healthy and vibrant, dispelling any worries about his collapses in 2016 and 2018 – both mainly from dehydration. A new instrumental, “Spanish Sushi,” was a real left turn, with Wyse on cello and Perry excelling on a jazz-rock fusion journey that was closer to Al DiMeola than Aerosmith.

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The cover of “Chip Away the Stone” was a highlight and a moment the band sounded most like, well, The Rolling Stones. Perry noted that Cherone wrote the lyrics for a new tune, “Quake,” and it is a gnarly midtempo bit of flash designed to get people dancing.

“Rockin’ Train” hails from Perry’s first solo album and it was still a gripping bit of hard-rocking blues with his potent guitar lines in prime form. The Project finished with a charge through Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” where Perry sang into a vocoder (a device that combines his guitar and vocal for an otherworldy effect) in a duet with Cherone. We’ll give them high scores for the unabated energy of that finale but the whole duet thing didn’t quite connect. But as an appetizer for Perry’s return in September, when Aerosmith plays Fenway Park, the set was a winner.

Swinging Steaks in Marshfield

The Swinging Steaks, the South Shore’s titans of Americana/country-rock, will be back together this week for a Friday night show in Marshfield. The band will perform at the Magical Moon Farm (575 Summer St.) in a special "Tailgate at the Barn" show that will run from 7 to 9 p.m., with gates open at 5:30 p.m. Tickets for the Barn are already sold out, but lawn tickets remain and fans are encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs. Admission is $20 at the door, and more info can be found by emailing donna@magicalmoonfarm.org. Magical Moon Farm is a haven for kids with life-threatening conditions.

As fans of the Steaks know, their area shows are rare, mainly because they’ve scattered a bit, with Holbrook’s Tim Giovanniello (guitar) living in North Carolina and Sharon bassist Paul Kochanski ensconced in the Berkshires, while Needham’s Jamie Walker (vocals/guitar) and Quincy’s Jim Gambino (keyboards) are still around. Multi-instrumentalist Steve Sadler and drummer Andy Plaistead are both Bostonians. All the musicians are busy with other projects, with Giovanniello, for example, leading a very popular Eagles tribute band in the Carolinas while Kochanski is part of Ronnie Earl’s band.

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But the good news for Steaks fans is that the band is about to release a new record. They released seven albums from the early 1990s onward, but there has been a long gap. In the past the Steaks would tinker with their new music and hone it in live performance before heading to the studio.

“Since the pandemic, we’ve been Zooming with everyone on Wednesday nights,” said Gambino, who lives in Brockton. “Tim has been writing a bunch of new tunes, and we’ve been working on the arrangements virtually. Normally, we’d throw a song out and just jam with it until we got it good enough to record. This time we’ve done all that by Zoom. Then we booked two or three days at Wooly Mammoth Studios in Waltham, with (Neighborhoods leader) David Minehan, and we had all our prep work and writing already done, so the sessions went quickly.”

“We had more songs than we needed, so we’re going to have to cut some,” said Gambino. “And we still have some more vocals to finish. But for the first time, we can make a record with no deadlines, and just worry about making it as good as we can. And I think people will hear David Minehan’s influence on it.”

Gambino works days as a full-time substance abuse counselor and three nights a week with the Hanover Veterans Service Office.  He had a thrill last week when he played at Menotomy Grill in Arlington as part of a band with Dennis Brennan that did a night of music in tribute to Allen “Blind Owl” Wilson, one of the founders of Canned Heat, and an Arlington native. The tune “Going Up the Country” required a flutist, and when Brennan heard Gambino’s daughter Nina play, he recruited her. Dad may have been more anxious than the flutist was, but Nina’s rock debut was a smash.

“I can take no credit for it,” said Gambino. “She has taken to her music on her own, and she works at it. She’s done tons of classical, and is part of the marching band at Brockton High, where they have a very good music program. I was just the proud father, more nervous than she was, on that night.”

Scituate's Ward Hayden and more hot dates

Head for City Winery on Wednesday, July 27, when Billy Prine will play some of his brother John’s best songs. City Winery has another good one Friday when the nine-piece Shinyribs plays all kinds of roots, with Scituate’s Ward Hayden and the Outliers opening. ... Three Days of Grace rocks The House of Blues on Thursday. ... Cousin Stizz raps at The Paradise on Friday. ... UPenn grad Steven Markowitz, better known as rapper Hoodie Allen, headlines Brighton Music Hall on Tuesday. ... Creed Bratton is famed as an actor from "The Office," but in another life he was part of the pop group The Grassroots, so his Wednesday show at Brighton Music Hall could be pretty cool. ... Gov’t Mule jams at the new Roadrunner on Aug. 11, with Oteil and Friends opening.

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Joe Perry Project ZZ Top combine forces at Leader Bank Pavilion Boston