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The Party Train Keeps Rolling: ZZ Top Piles On Another Two Dozen 2026 Tour Dates

ID 24290099 | Paul © 
Featureflash | Dreamstime.com
ID 24290099 | Paul © Featureflash | Dreamstime.com

That little ol' band from Texas has done it again.

ZZ Top, the bearded, beat-up, boogie-propelled institution that has somehow been doing this for 56 years and counting, just shoveled nearly two dozen more dates onto a 2026 tour that was already the size of a small state. The latest batch, announced April 21, tacks on August and September shows across the American map from Chula Vista to Cape Cod, from the high desert of Utah to the tidewater of coastal North Carolina. By the time the trio finally pulls the bus into its last driveway this fall, they'll have played two continents, two other continents' worth of countries, and enough amphitheaters to fill a regional map of post-war America.

Billy Gibbons, who has apparently decided that sleep is something other people do, had the usual philosopher-in-a-Stetson take on the whole thing. The band, he noted in the announcement, has been at this for something like five decades, they seem to be getting good at it, and so there's no reason to slow things down. Let's rock. That's the Billy Gibbons worldview distilled to a cocktail napkin, and it has the ring of something you can't really argue with.

The new stretch fills out what the band is still calling The Big One! tour, a branding move that feels increasingly honest as the itinerary grows. By the numbers, this thing is now five distinct legs of an overlapping campaign. First came the Dos Amigos run with Dwight Yoakam, announced back in the fall, a double-bill that pairs the Texas blues-rockers with a honky-tonk iconoclast in nine theaters and amphitheaters spread across April and May. Then came the original U.S. Big One! dates, 19 shows that threaded through the South and Midwest from Abilene to Greensburg. Then a sprawling 23-date European run, ZZ Top's first time back on that continent in two years, looping from Tartu through the Nordics, the Low Countries, Germany, France, and ending in Cadiz. Then a November swing through Mexico and South America, marking the band's first performances below the equator in 16 years.

And now this. Twenty-three more American shows that plug a hole between the end of the European tour in late July and the Latin American dates in November. A summer the band apparently decided it couldn't bear to leave empty.

The new run leans heavily on support acts that read like a classic rock radio playlist come to life. Cheap Trick hops on for seven of the August dates, which is the kind of pairing that sells itself before the doors even open, two Rock Hall acts with a combined song catalog deep enough to soundtrack a whole summer of cookouts. George Thorogood and the Destroyers join for four of the September stops, Dos Amigos partner Yoakam pops up for a reunion night in Lynchburg, Virginia, and up-and-comer McKinley James plus Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band grab the other opening slots. It's the kind of bill Gibbons has always gravitated toward, deep-fried American music all the way down.

The highlights of the new run tell their own story. Two nights at the ACL Live at the Moody Theater in Austin, because of course, one ZZ Top hometown residency deserves another. A California string that runs from San Diego up through Fresno and Modesto before making the leap into the Pacific Northwest. A hard pivot east through Utah and Colorado and into Virginia. Then a September that reads like a New England postcard tour, with stops in Gilford, Bangor, Hyannis, and Lynn, plus an arena show at Mohegan Sun and the Cape Cod Melody Tent. The closer on September 18 in Wilmington, North Carolina, at Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre, puts the whole thing to bed about a month before the Mexican dates kick off.

Gibbons, Frank Beard, and bassist Elwood Francis, who stepped in after Dusty Hill's 2021 passing and has grown into the spot with the kind of quiet competence that would have pleased his predecessor, are now three generations of fans deep, as Gibbons is fond of pointing out. The crowds at these shows contain people who remember Eliminator on MTV and people whose parents weren't born yet when Tres Hombres hit. They all apparently want the same thing, which is to watch three guys stand mostly still on a stage and play the blues through amplifiers the size of refrigerators, and ZZ Top, bless them, continues to deliver exactly that.

The old line about how the boogie is a form of prayer keeps feeling more true every year. The band at the altar hasn't changed the service in a long time. It doesn't need to.

The party train continues to roll.


Complete 2026 Tour Itinerary

Dos Amigos Tour (with Dwight Yoakam)

  • Apr 23 — Fort Wayne, IN — Allen County Coliseum
  • Apr 24 — Peoria, IL — Peoria Civic Center Arena
  • Apr 25 — Bonner Springs, KS — Azura Amphitheater
  • May 7 — Des Moines, IA — Lauridsen Amphitheater
  • May 8 — Camdenton, MO — Ozarks Amphitheater
  • May 9 — El Reno, OK — Lucky Star Amphitheater
  • May 21 — North Charleston, SC — North Charleston Coliseum
  • May 22 — Cary, NC — Koka Booth Amphitheater
  • May 23 — Huntington, WV — Marshall Health Network Arena

The Big One! U.S. Spring Leg

  • Apr 30 — Oxford, AL — Oxford Performing Arts Center
  • May 1 — Cherokee, NC — Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort
  • May 2 — Valdosta, GA — Wild Adventure
  • May 5 — Madison, WI — Orpheum Theater
  • May 14 — Council Bluffs, IA — Harrah's
  • May 15 — Prior Lake, MN — Mystic Lake Casino
  • May 19 — Greensburg, PA — Palace Theatre

The Big One! European Leg

  • Jun 22 — Tartu, Estonia
  • Jun 23 — Helsinki, Finland
  • Jun 26 — Rattvik, Sweden
  • Jun 28 — Trondheim, Norway
  • Jun 30 — Malmo, Sweden
  • Jul 2 — Hamburg, Germany
  • Jul 3 — Friedberg, Germany
  • Jul 4 — Waltheim, Germany
  • Jul 6 — Pardubice, Czech Republic
  • Jul 7 — Poelten, Austria
  • Jul 9 — Brussels, Belgium
  • Jul 10 — Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
  • Jul 11 — Weert, Netherlands — Bospop Festival
  • Jul 13 — Regensburg, Germany
  • Jul 14 — Zurich, Switzerland
  • Jul 15 — Paris, France
  • Jul 16 — Saint Malo Du Bois, France
  • Jul 18 — Pamplona, Spain
  • Jul 19 — Barcelona, Spain
  • Jul 22 — Valencia, Spain
  • Jul 23 — Murcia, Spain
  • Jul 25 — Cadiz, Spain

The Big One! U.S. Summer/Fall Leg (Newly Added)

  • Aug 4 — Chula Vista, CA — North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre (with Cheap Trick)
  • Aug 7 — Fresno, CA — Saroyan Theater (with McKinley James)
  • Aug 9 — Modesto, CA — Fruit Yard Amphitheatre (with Cheap Trick)
  • Aug 11 — Redmond, WA — Marymoor Amphitheater (with Cheap Trick)
  • Aug 13 — Central Point, OR — Bi-Mart Amphitheater (with Cheap Trick)
  • Aug 14 — Ridgefield, WA — Ilani Casino
  • Aug 18 — Sandy, UT — Sandy City Amphitheater (with Cheap Trick)
  • Aug 19 — Colorado Springs, CO — Pikes Peak Center
  • Aug 21 — Lynchburg, VA — Lynchburg Amphitheater at Riverfront Park (with Dwight Yoakam)
  • Aug 22 — Austin, TX — ACL Live at The Moody Theater
  • Aug 23 — Austin, TX — ACL Live at The Moody Theater
  • Aug 29 — Terre Haute, IN — The Mill (with Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band)
  • Aug 30 — Kettering, OH — Fraze Pavilion
  • Sep 1 — East Meadow, NY — Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre
  • Sep 5 — Gilford, NH — Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion (with George Thorogood)
  • Sep 6 — Bangor, ME — Maine Savings Amphitheater (with George Thorogood)
  • Sep 9 — Lynn, MA — Lynn Memorial Auditorium
  • Sep 11 — Solomons, MD — PNC Waterside Pavilion (with George Thorogood)
  • Sep 12 — Uncasville, CT — Mohegan Sun Arena (with George Thorogood)
  • Sep 13 — Hyannis, MA — Cape Cod Melody Tent
  • Sep 15 — Lancaster, PA — American Music Theatre
  • Sep 18 — Wilmington, NC — Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre

The Big One! Mexico and South America Leg

  • Nov 9 — Guadalajara, Mexico — Telmex Auditorium
  • Nov 11 — Mexico City, Mexico — Auditorio Nacional
  • Nov 12 — Monterrey, Mexico — Banamex Auditorium
  • Nov 16 — Santiago, Chile
  • Nov 18 — Porto Alegre, Brazil — Pepsi On Stage
  • Nov 20 — Curitiba, Brazil — Igloo Super Hall
  • Nov 21 — São Paulo, Brazil — Espaço Unimed
  • Nov 24 — Buenos Aires, Argentina

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