Rock Legends ZZ Top and Jeff Beck Together at Starlight

Blues-rock legends ZZ Top and electric guitar icon Jeff Beck will take the Starlight Theatre stage Aug. 23. The music legends are mutual admirers and are touring together for the first time.

ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, speaking on behalf of band mates Dusty Hill and Frank Beard, noted that Beck has been a source of musical inspiration since he played with the Yardbirds in the 1960s.

“Ever since experiencing ‘Jeff’s Boogie,’ the prospect of performance with Jeff Beck on the deck brings us into focus with the curator of crunch,” Gibbons said.

This year’s five-week tour is not the first live collaboration between the two camps. Gibbons joined Beck and his band on stage at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. They performed Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” and ZZ Top’s “Rough Boy” together.

ZZ Top, formed in 1969, became a huge national touring act in the ’70s and darlings of MTV in the ’80s. The group went on to sell tens of millions of records. Their unique hybrid of dirty blues and hard rock, incorporating new sounds and technology, earned them induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

Beck, a native of London and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer (with The Yardbirds in 1992 and on his own in 2009), helped set the template in the ’60s for the solo heavy-rock, guitar hero model.

Tickets go on sale at 11 a.m. April 25 at the Starlight Theatre box office, online at tickets.kcstarlight.com and by phone at 816.363.7827.