When one imagines a band wrecking a hotel room or venue, we often think of them doing it with their own hands—in Southern rock band ZZ Top’s case, a real-life buffalo (which they lost multiple times) did some of their most memorable damage.
But hey, who could blame them? Keeping track of an actual buffalo (plus a long-horn steer, buzzards, and rattlesnakes) had to come with its fair share of challenges.
ZZ Top’s Wild Texan Menagerie
For ZZ Top, simply saying they were from Texas wasn’t going to cut it. To hammer their point home, the band included a roving menagerie of Deep South critters on their 1976 Worldwide Texas Tour. The collection of live animals included buffalo, cattle, buzzards, rattlesnakes, and a “howling wolf” that was actually a German shepherd who never learned how to howl, so the band had to use a tape recording of a howl while the dog threw its head back.
ZZ Top’s production team incorporated all the animals into the live stage show, including a gag where they would “lose” one rattlesnake while corralling them back in their glass case. In control of the situation the entire time, the wranglers would retrieve the “lost” snake without issue. (However, the band would enjoy some great press the next day about escaped venomous snakes at their concert.)
Even the buzzards played a part in the stage performance, responding to the electric guitars by opening their wings to the delight of the audience. One rogue buzzard (all of whom had the name Oscar #1 through #6) started flying around the arena during a concert in Richmond, Virginia. The wrangler eventually had to come on stage and stand under the spotlight, whistling for the bird to return to him.
ZZ Top’s Buffalo Blasted Through A Baseball Field
Of course, wrangling large animals like buffalo and long-horn steers was far more challenging than a bird, snake, or dog. ZZ Top lost their buffalo multiple times during the Worldwide Tour. Luckily for the “Legs” band and everyone around them, the massive beasts only damaged property, not people.
Guitarist Billy Gibbons recalled one such instance in an interview with the Los Angeles Daily News: “The only time it got sticky was when the buffalo made his escape. One afternoon…we played Three Rivers Stadium [where the Pittsburgh Pirates played]. I’ll never forget seeing the trainer in a golf cart trying to catch up to the buffalo stampeding and zig-zagging across third base to home plate.”
Gibbons later said, “The next day was a [Pirates] game, and the players complained because the animals had gotten loose and put divots in the field” (via Louder Sound).
A Terrifying Encounter Between A Buffalo And Limo Driver
By the second half of ZZ Top’s Worldwide Tour, the band’s fame had grown exponentially, prompting their manager, Bill Ham, to hire nine stretch limos for each show to hide the band members. All three members would go into their own limo, and Ham placed six decoys in the remaining cars, ensuring the band could get to their venues safely.
Unfortunately for the limousine drivers, the buffalo escaped again months after the baseball field snafu. During a Fort Worth performance in November 1976, the buffalo ripped out its nose ring while trainers were leading it to the stage, causing the beast to panic. “He’s throwing his head around in pain, snorting and wild-eyed,” recalled set design assistant Micael Priest. “He sees this tall strip of light streaming in through the doors in the distance, so he went straight for it.”
“Between him and the light, of course, are the limos with the drivers inside,” Priest continued. “He charges right between the first two but then gets jammed between the next two. The driver wakes from his nap, looks over, and not five inches from his eye is the face of this insane buffalo, sneezing and blowing blood all over the window. He had the presence of mind to lock the door, so it at least couldn’t get inside” (via Louder Sound).
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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