by Alan Schaefer, Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University
This Week in Texas Music History, the Longhorns welcome ZZ Top to a barbecue and kind of regret it.
On September 1, 1974, a little ol’ band from Texas took the stage at an unlikely venue. ZZ Top, along with Bad Company, Joe Cocker, and Santana, performed in concert at the University of Texas’s Memorial Stadium. The event was billed as “ZZ Top’s First Annual Texas-Sized Rompin’ Stompin’ Barndance and Bar B.Q.” Approximately 80,000 hard rock fans filled the stadium and its newly placed astroturf under a mighty Texas sun for the first and only “Barndance.”
Seeds of the concert were planted in 1973 when UT student government was facing budget cuts. Student government financial director Barry Leff devised a plan to throw a fundraising concert, and he set his sights on the mighty Memorial Stadium. But first, there was one man who had to approve of its use: University of Texas football coach and winner of multiple national championships Darrell K. Royal. An already legendary figure on the Forty Acres, Coach Royal approved the plan, thinking it would never actually come to fruition. Further, UT itself had to contend with Bill Ham, ZZ Top’s tough-as-nails manager.
The upstart Leff, who eventually pursued a lengthy concert promotion career, assembled the heavyweight lineup, anchored by ZZ Top riding high off the success of the album Tres Hombres. Bill Narum, the Houston-born artist and countercultural bon vivant, who would go on to serve as ZZ Top’s art director, designed the concert poster. Coach Royal didn’t believe Leff’s claim that perhaps 10 or 20,000 would show up. But the stadium filled to capacity and then some. The BBQ ran out, and then it seemed like potable water might, too, which was a bit of an issue on a sunny Labor Day weekend in Texas. The show went off with only minor damage to the hallowed ground for Longhorn football. Still, the university would not be quick to open the stadium gates wide for rockers again, this first annual Barndance and BBQ also being the last. The ZZ Top album Fandango! commemorated the epic day with a photo insert of the full stadium, captioned: “Austin Summer ’74 with 80,000 friends.”
Sources:
Robert Faires. “Bill Narum In Memoriam,” Austin Chronicle. November 27, 2009. https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/bill-narum-11746337/
Matt Largey. “What’s the story behind ZZ Top’s First Annual Texas Size Rompin’ Stompin’ Barndance and Bar B.Q.?”, Texas Standard. https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/zz-top-university-texas-austin-concert-1974-ut-memorial-stadium/
Media: ATXPlained on ZZ Top at Memorial Stadium
