Side A of ZZ top Fandango any good?

I would argue that the most recent album La Futura is their best since Deguello.

Tres Hombres is my favorite.

 

Smokin' live Top? Don't listen to it, it can't be any good.
Mellow down easy, baby...

 

Frank Beard kicks major *** in the medley on side A
This lp was my intro to ZZ when I was a kid; side A is a huge shot of energy to me, love it!

 

The album came out when I was in college. Once the novelty of side one wore off, most of us would play Thunderbird and then switch to side B.

 

I don't like side A - it's not terrible, it's just boring and messy.

Side B is very, very good.

Tres Hombres is the album to start with, no question.

 

ZZ Top was never a particularly tight live band, and it shows on side one. But it still has a certain sweaty barroom rawness that can be endearing, and they didn't appear to whitewash the performance with too much studio trickery.

 

I just got Fandango! as part of the ZZ Top Six Pack last weekend. Thinking I shouldn’t listen to it at all. I’m fearful I won’t like it.

 

It'll sound better than the horrid remixes of the studio albums in that set.

 

or start one where you ask if the cheese or meat is any good after licking the sandwich LOL.

Seriously, though, to answer the original post. Side A YES.

 

Are the Pet Shop Boys on it also?

 

Mötley Crüe.

 

Love both sides of this album. Might be my fav ZZ Top album.

 

Cut it half and make two threads

 

Other than Thunderbird, not worth listening IMO. But then again, as others said, it's like 15 minutes. Listen and go on.

To me, Fandango is an EP. As that, it's essential.

 

I like the vibe of the performance.
It was taken from The Warehouse in New Orleans.
I wish there was more out there from this venue.
Allman Brothers would be nice.

 

Yes.

And if you don't have enough time to listed to one 15-minute album side, I sure wouldn't be spending time posting.

 

This album was I think the second album I ever bought, so I listened to it with a clean mind without any references, and I still thought the medley was a bit weird (especially the "sing-until-you-loose-your-breath contest), but I grew to love it. I'm not so sure what I would think if I heard it for the first time now though. "Thunderbird" is absolutely smoking and ranks among their greatest material, and "Jailhouse Rock" was and is an essential standard in their live show and an ok version as a bit of high energy fun, I just think it's weird how Frank straightened out the rhythm of the "whack, whack" snare "answer" figure (I had a ZZ cover band and it drove the drummer mad that I insisted he'd play it like this for authencity).

I don't think they're particularly sloppy on these songs, but then these takes are some of the tightest live playing I have heard from them so it's relative, and I get what you're saying, ZZ sounded ridiculously tight and swinging on record back ten, and to hear how they sounded live is always so disappointing(not to mention how they sound now).

What we get are actually the opening track and the encores, strange selection, but I guess they wanted to feature "new" songs (the medley is mostly new except for the opening segment, which is almost unrecognizabe as "Backdoor Love Affair" anyway).

Recorded at The Warehouse in New Orleans: The Warehouse (New Orleans) - Wikipedia

It is included on both Rancho Texicano and Chrome, Smoke & BBQ.

Right! The B-side is in fact the best album side ever (in my own humble opinion).

The live side is the only listenable part of that package, not sure if it is even remixed at all.

 

Yes, It is on the box set (It should make the track list for a 4 cd set.) and Rancho Texicano which is a distillation of the 4 cd box set but they omit it from all of the single disc compilations and the Very Baddest 2 disc compilation. I think it is one of the best tracks by the earlier era of the band.

 

You say all as if there are endless amounts, there are six compilations, of which three are single discs.

The Best Of, being from the 70's and released on LP, only has room for so many songs and picks (the correct i.m.o.) three studio songs from Fandango!, it would have been very odd to have a live track on that one. Greatest Hits is focused on the 80's part, and only has the two big hits from the 70's (and I think they actually could just have skipped those too, they seem out of place). So that leaves us with the single disc version of Baddest, that one again only features "Tush" from Fandango!, and as it's career spanning you can't pick too many songs from any one album and I think if there had been more tracks from Fandango! the first in line should be "Heard It On the X" and after that "Blues Jean Blues".

Those Baddest compilations seem to be very sloppily thrown together, the songs are all jumbled up with no rhyme or reason, and on the 2-CD the RCA era tracks are then tagged on at the end as an afterthought. But but the two disc version does manage to include some essential selections that were missed on previous complilations, like "(Someone Else Been) Shaking Your Tree"[sic] (yes they misspelled the title), "Party On The Patio" and several single versions. Actually the selection is perhaps the best of any compilation, if the tracks had just been put in some kind of order and it had been packaged in a way that doesn't make it look like it's a bootleg/pirate, it is so cheap and shoddy looking.

If we except the box set, I think that "Thunderbird" only warrants inclusions on Rancho Texicano, since that is two discs drawing tracks from the 70's and 80's, so having room for enough tracks from each album, and even so Fandango! is pushing it with five tracks included (I think "Mexican Blackbird" is a very odd choice though and I would have rather had "Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings", which was a live staple all through the 70's and into the 80's, and resurrected again in the 90's).

All ZZ compilations are more or less flawed in some way by some questionable selections, I think the best compilation of 70's tracks is the promo World Wide Texas Tour, that one gets it right.

 

Except still no Thunderbird on World Wide Texas Tour promo lp. However, it shows they could have at least added 2 more tracks to the Best Of released a year later.

Thunderbird was also played live quite bit so fans would have heard it that way back in the day even it wasn't released as a single.

I agree Mexican Blackbird was not a good choice and I thought the last 3 rarities on Rancho Texicano were a waste, especially the alternate mixes. Nasty Dogs And Funky Kings and Backdoor Love Affair would have been much better choices.

 

Which is correct i.m.o., given the space constrictions.

When I first learned about this promo I was very excited because the title lead me to believe it was a live album from the WWTT, now wouldn't that have been something.

 

According to setlist.fm Thunderbird has been played live more often than either Francine or Backdoor Love Affair.

 

"Francine" was never played that often live even back in the 70's, but it was a single. It isn't on WWTT promo either, it is the one track not included compared to The Best Of. Not sure why they included "Backdoor Love Affair" on compilations back then (over for example the single "Shakin' Your Tree"), but it was the track from the first album which was a live standard in the 70's as it was almost always played as an encore.

"Thunderbird" has been resurrected in recent years, so has many plays beyond the 70's. One flaw with the count may be (depending on how many early shows are listed) that it is included as the opening track in set lists of early shows, when what they actually played was just an instrumental called "C-Shuffle" (sometimes including a vocal verse, but from "Everyday I Have The Blues"), eventually the melody/lyrics of "Thunderbird" was added on top of this instrumental arrangement they were already playing. I tried to have this corrected on some ZZ sites, such as "Little Ol' Web Page" (which now seems to be gone).

 

According to the site Mexican Blackbird was played more often than any of the three I mentioned and more often than Nasty Dogs And Funky Kings and Precious And Grace. Maybe that explains why they included it on Rancho Texicano.

Chevrolet is another older one that was played more often than some of the ones we have mentioned.

 

All I can say is, Fandango! is the only ZZ Top album I own and the only one I ever will own. It was the #1 drinking session album of my senior year in high school (a couple years after its release, I was always 2-3 years behind the times). The live side is GREAT and a perfect antidote to years of Top's uber-commercial hits. When I think ZZ Top, I don't think about their hits or even their beards, I think of Side 1 of Fandango! It is a weird little album, never really understood why they went with Side 1: Short Live Set and Side 2: Random Studio Tracks but ultimately it works.