VIDEO: Live at the Marquee: Bearded bad boys ZZ Top prove a blast

We came for the beards, garish outfits and furry guitars, we left with a head full of the greatest riffs to have blessed a fretboard since Jimi departed our galaxy.

Surely no one privileged enough to have been in the Marquee last night could dare challenge the time-worn rock ‘n’ roll legend that Hendrix gave his beloved pink Stratocaster to Billy Gibbons having been blown away by the ZZ Top frontman’s incredible playing. He certainly had that pink Fender on all night, and Jimi on the big screens.

Had Wayne and Garth been with us in the mosh pit last night, they’d still be there now this morning, protesting their unworthiness. Instead, as you read this with your mid-morning coffee, there’s just a handful of us Corkonians in fake beards back at the scene, wondering was it real and asking ourselves how we’ll kill the next 12 months waiting for the world’s best blues band to, hopefully, once again deem us worthy of their third coming.