Customer Reviews

Double Down Live

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first DVD in this set is the legendary 1980 German TV Rockpalast performance the band performed on their red hot Deguello Tour. I was fortunate enough to see the band on this tour and have been hooked ever since. If you have never experienced the band live from this period you are in for a totally jaw dropping experience. Chances are pretty good you will find yourself cracking a beer before the first few songs are through so it may be wise to have the refrigerator stocked up. This stunning show has been circulating in bootleg form among collectors for many years (for good reason) but to finally have it with cleaner sound and a clearer picture is a dream come true. This is ZZ TOP in their prime! Disc 2 is a bit of a departure as it is more or less a "rockumentary" of the band on tour, intersperced with some hot live concert footage from their 2008 tour....somewhat of a video diary of the bands life on the road. It would have been nice to have this concert available in it's full uncut form as it smokes yet I found much of the footage of the band off stage to be strangely intriging to say the least. There's more going on under those beards than meets the eye. Make no mistake though the real gem of this collection is the 1980 show which is totally priceless and completely worth the price of admission.....essential to any fan of great Tex-Mex Boogie & Blues..

I really loved ZZ Top's last DVD release "Live From Texas", and now I like this release even more. You get a 22 song concert, that was filmed in Essen, Germany for the Rockpalast,(Rock Palace) Show, during 1980. Then you get another disc, which includes 11 song performances from their 2008 world tours. These performances are all previously unreleased. There is NO duplication of the "Live From Texas" DVD.

The line-up is the same as its always been: Billy Gibbons on lead vocals & guitar, Dusty Hill on some lead vocals & bass guitar, and Frank Beard on drums.

Disc One: The 1980 Rockpalast Concert: (Song Set)

1.I Thank You
2.Waitin' for the Bus
3.Jesus just left Chicago
4.Precious and Grace
5.I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide
6.Manic Mechanic
7.Lowdown in the Street
8.Heard it on the X
9.Fool For Your Stockings
10.Nasty Dogs & Funky Kings
11.El Diablo
12.Cheap Sunglasses
13.Arrested for Driving While Blind
14.Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers
15.La Grange
16.She Loves My Automobile
17.Hi Fi Mama
18.Dust My Broom
19.Jailhouse Rock
20.Tush
21.Tube Snake Boogie
22.Just Got Paid

Disc Two: From the 2008 World Tour: (Song set)
1.Got Me Under Pressure
2.Waitin' for the Bus
3.Jesus just left Chicago
4.I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide
5.Blue Jean Blues
6.Heard it on the X
7.Just Got Paid
8.I Need You Tonight
9.La Grange
10.Hey Joe
11.Tush.

The approximate total running time for both disc is 154 minutes. This is a great double disc dvd of ZZ Top. You get to see them back in their younger days, with the 1980 concert. Then you get to see the more mature version of them on disc 2. This is the ultimate package deal for a ZZ Top Fan or any Rock Fan period.

The 1980 show from Germany is the real highlight here,incredible energy coming off the stage.If your only knowledge of this band has been from MTV videos,you are in for quite a surprise.Nice job done on the sound mix.

The jewel here is definitely the 1980 show: great songs, sound and the camera shoots it like a concert. Everything's played tight and loud and with great energy. You also get great breadth of songs from their catalog, as the set list hits every album.

The 2nd disc should be sent back to the band and they should be forced to watch every single minute. There's no way they could have sat thru more than 1 complete song of this ridculous sort of film lab test. You get the start of a song, then it cuts to grainy 2009 black/white footage of them standing around at a photo shoot, back to a song, back to a b/w picture of a building, back to song, b/w picture of a dog, start of guitar solo in song, b/w photo of old guys, then song, film of clouds, back/forth, etc. The shame is that the 2009 footage looks well shot ... maybe because of being spliced with such awful b/w footage?

Why ruin a good concert with this mess? The extra b/w stuff could have been included as extra "bonus ?" material. Or, there should have been a "watch concert only" option, like some DVD's include. Hopefully, the band gets their heads back on straight a shoot a good concert film -- with good songs, without 15 camera cuts every 30 seconds, and only show the crowd in-between songs. Kind of like what was done 29 years ago, but with HD and 5.1.

I bought the ZZ Top DVD of the 2008 show last year...and watched it exactly ONCE. I briefly thought: is this the same band that is pictured on the Fandango album? The second thought was: did they borrow their 2008 stage lighting and chrome from a regional beauty pagent stage? Too much Glitter! NOT the case here. This 1980 show is the Real Deal. This is the ZZ Top I grew up with during the seventies! Unpretentious performance, adequate stage lighting...these guys rock from A to Z!! Incidentally, I found my copy at Wal-Mart, available as one disc ( merely the 1980 concert ). Technical note for Videophiles: even though it was a 1980 show, they were still using tube video cameras; hence the intermittent horizontal lines and "image smear" when a camera pulled away from stage lights. Nice surprise with the stereo sound, though!

As much as I keep going to their concerts, this band is definitely a traveling Classic Rock Show and a shadow of their former selves. Thank goodness they included a Rockpalast concert where viewers can see and hear ZZTop at the top of their game. One can even see their eyes! The most recent concerts that I have gone to, they wear their sunglasses while playing. How hip, how rude. Could be any alien playing. How about giving the audience a thrill and play without your "Cheap Sunglasses?" That said, buy this, it's worth it for any ZZTOP fan. [...]

A very good way to compare ZZ Top then and now all in one package! Quality sound and video!

The 1980 concert is awesome! My husband is a HUGE ZZ Top fan and loved the first part. The second was good but seeing ZZ Top in their prime was truly fantastic!

ZZ Top - Double Down Live
Rockpalast has been presenting no-frills performances by bands since 1974. The fact German television ended up with a Rock TV show hipper than just about anything on US television is odd, but so is the one clean shaven guy in ZZ Top being named Beard. Fans of the Tejas Trio are in for a treat. Frank, Billy and Dusty delivered a killer set on Rockpalast in 1980. Even the muddy dubs of that set in circulation over the years made it clear that this was an exceptional performance. Thanks to Eagle Rock Entertainment, which has arranged for the restoration and release of several Rockpalast sets on DVD, the concert can now be experienced in much higher quality video and audio than even those lucky enough to catch the original telecast got to see and hear. It captures ZZ Top at its raw, potent best - before the slickness of Eliminator and the even more unfortunate slide into the band's techno-cliché plagued Afterburner phase. The 22 song set on disc 1 absolutely smokes - with Gibbons, Hill and Beard totally tuned in to each other and the music - no silly props or synth looped nonsense, this is ZZ Top getting down & dirty. The second disc of this set features concert and off-stage footage from the 2008 tour. The concert segments on this disc suggest that the band is serious about returning the emphasis to making great music instead of it being incidental to a bunch of special effects, audio smoke & mirrors and silly choreography. That's great news for true fans of one of the best trios to ever plug-in.

I just finished watching the show from the 80's. I've always considered myself a big ZZ Top fan. As I recall, I saw them back in the 70's at the Tarrant County Convention Center in Ft. Worth and then again in Austin at the First Annual Rompin' Stompin' Barn Dance and Bar-B-Que (I forget what year that was). I saw them again in the late 90's in St. Louis. I just don't recall ever seeing Billy Gibbons this hopped up on so much 'natural' energy! :-D I wish I had seen them more back then!
Edit: I just wanted to add, that in my opinion, their studio work is much better than this live stuff for the great sound nuances of the guitar riffs, but this is still a heck of an entertaining DVD.