No one is very sure when ZZ Top last released a new album in this country, although they have continued to put them out in America from time to time. But the three beards from Houston, Texas — Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard — remain an enduring live attraction even this long after their multiplatinum heyday in the 1980s. The magic of their stage show has stayed as immutable as their hirsute image, and going to see them at Wembley once again was like watching one of the vintage hotrods from their videos being taken out for yet another spin around the track.

Rolling into view, the trio embarked on a familiar and finely tuned repertoire. Standing together at the front with their matching beards, shades, guitars, jackets and space-age microphone stands, Gibbons and Hill navigated a series of quirky, mirror-image dance steps apparently without trying, while they sailed through Got Me Under Pressure and then waded into the timeless blues-rock combination of Waiting for the Bus and Jesus Just Left Chicago.

There were few surprises as they ran through a succession of gilt-edged songs from their early years, including I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide and Cheap Sunglasses, before arriving at the big crowd-pleasers from their album Eliminator — Gimme All Your Lovin, Sharp Dressed Man and Legs, the latter performed on furry white oblong guitars — accompanied by a triumvirate of videos on the big screens behind.

While Gibbons and Hill performed with their usual sense of mischievous bonhomie, Beard seemed sullen and disengaged as he sat, chain-smoking cigarettes behind his drum kit. Never the most expressive of characters, he turned in a lacklustre performance that dragged down the show as a whole. At the end, as Gibbons and Hill took a well-earned bow, the drummer stalked off into the wings without a second glance. Boo.

There were spats aplenty between the four members of Steel Panther, who opened the show. The latest in a lengthening line of rock’n’roll parody bands stretching back to the Tubes, the pantomime hair-metal band from Los Angeles performed with flamboyant expertise and startling bad taste. “My heart belongs to you, but my c*** is community property,” they sang in one of their more sensitive moments.

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