where did lynyrd skynyrd tour in 1976

Nearby Communities

• Paramus, NJ
• Fair Lawn-Saddle Brook, NJ
• Westwood-Hillsdale, NJ
• Wyckoff, NJ
• River Dell, NJ
• New Milford, NJ
• Oakland, NJ
• Pearl River, NY

State Edition

National edition.

• Top National News
• See All Communities

This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Arts & Entertainment

Lynyrd skynyrd live at knebworth '76 a classic performance, cd/dvd and cd/blu-ray out friday, april 9, brian aberback , community contributor.

On August 21, 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd gave a performance for the ages at the Knebworth festival in England. And we're not just talking a classic southern rock performance but one of the most memorable, charismatic yet exacting rock-and-roll shows, period. Thankfully the concert is now available in its entirety for the first time. "Live At Knebworth '76" is available Friday, April 9, as a CD/DVD or CD/Blu-Ray package. The Blu-Ray also includes the critically acclaimed fully authorized documentary, "If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd."

But back to Knebworth, where Skynyrd blew everyone off the stage that day - yes, including headliners The Rolling Stones. In 1976 Skynyrd had been invigorated by the addition of new third guitarist Steve Gaines, who pushed fellow six-stringers Allen Collins and Gary Rossington to up their games. The three-man guitar work throughout the show is an incredible display. Collins' frenetic soloing, Rossington's slide and rhythm work, and Gaines' fitting perfectly in the middle provide a fiery, fully engrossing performance. It's also notable that singer Ronnie Van Zant did not provide any stage banter between songs. The group had a little over an hour to play, and they were going to make every second count.

Van Zant was the band's legendary front man, bandleader and musical director. The outlaw dressed all in black, performing with bare feet, his famous western hat atop his head. Perhaps no one could command a stage while standing mainly in the same spot throughout a show. Van Zant's rough and ready vocals, ubiquitous calling in the dogs whistle and encouragement of his fellow band members has the audience enthralled.

Find out what's happening in Ridgewood-Glen Rock with free, real-time updates from Patch.

Meanwhile, bassist Leon Wilkeson and drummer Artimus Pyle propelled Skynyrd with a solid undercurrent and pianist Billy Powell brought the boogie with his excellent keyboard and piano playing. The band was backed by the Honkettes, a trio of feisty backing vocalists: JoJo Billingsley, Cassie Gaines and Leslie Hawkins.

The band, Collins especially, was champing at the bit to start the show, barely containing his enthusisam to hit the first note. You knew something special was about to take place. As soon as the group launched into opener "Workin' for MCA" they made the festival crowd at Knebworth their own intimate honkey tonk bar. Van Zant is in especially fine form vocal-wise and Powell's rollicking piano augments the edgy rocker.

"I Ain't the One" is driven by a staccato-riff and the classic "Saturday Night Special" tells a menacing tale vocal and instrumental wise alike. "Searching" sees the outlaw Van Zant admitting that salvation can be found in love - don't worry, this isn't a ballad but a searing guitar number.

The band then switch gear into road dogs mode with the upbeat "Whiskey Rock-A-Roller" and the swing of "Travelin' Man," which features a swampy bass intro and some fluid work by Wilkeson and Pyle's strong, athletic drumming.

The renowned honky tonk of "Gimme Three Steps" follows, the three-guitar wrecking machine of Collins, Rossington and Gaines again taking control. A couple of covers are next, with the band giving new energy to J.J. Cale's "Call Me the Breeze" and Jimmie Rodgers' " T for Texas."

It's then into the home stress with a joyful, exuberant rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama." Finally, it's "Free Bird" time. Skynyrd turns in one of its most memorable performances of the plaintive turned joyous celebration of rock-and-roll, a true all-time classic. It's a physically and emotionally powerful tune, the highlight of course being the ultimate guitar solo trade-off that is the song's grand finale.

The Stones only had one rule for opening bands at Knebworth: Do not go down the "tongue" ramp, a Stones stage feature that extended down near the crowd. Skynyrd, the bad boys they were, ignored this rule, Van Zant leading an at first hesitant Rossington and Collins down the ramp. While Mick may not have been pleased, he had bigger things to worry about: just how to follow a performance that took the house down. Turns out his band had no answer, as did most who took the stage after Skynyrd burned it down.

We all know the story: only 14 months after Knebworth came the plane crash. The question of what could have been, especially after watching this performance, lingers 45 years on. But for now, just bask in this awesome, awe-inspiring show. Skynyrd at Knebworth 1976 is a revelation, chronicling a time when no one could top this band; no matter how hard they tried.

Note: The Blu-Ray edition includes the feature-length documentary, "If I Leave Here Tomorrow." Featuring enlightening current and archival interviews with band members as well as classic footage, the film is the closest look you'll get into Skynyrd's trials and tribulations. Especially engaging is the focus on the band's early days as it rose from the hardscrabble section of Jacksonville, Fla., to international superstardom.

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch? Register for a user account.

More from Ridgewood-Glen Rock

Nail salon in ridgewood to reopen after crash.

Ridgefield Girl, 15, Identified As Victim In Fatal Crash

5-Month-Old Baby, 2 Kids Rescued After Bergen County Crash

• Skip to Main Menu
• Skip to Main Content
• Notable Equipment
• Record Labels
• Additional Artists
• Things I Like

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Discography

The Tangled History Of Lynyrd Skynyrd

The American South has several strong musical associations. Jazz, blues, and soul all originated from the region, it's closely tied to the country genre, and it's easily suggested in film and TV scores by a few notes from a banjo. But there is also Southern rock as a distinct subgenre within rock and roll. And the band that is arguably most responsible for defining the sound of Southern rock is Lynyrd Skynyrd .

First formed in 1969 in Jacksonville, Florida, Lynyrd Skynyrd went from a local group offering a cocktail of country, rock, and blues to a seminal act of the 1970s music scene. "Sweet Home Alabama," Free Bird," and other singles from the band have become genre staples. With various configurations of members, they've remained active into the 2020s, with their latest tour running through spring and summer 2023 (per the band's official website ).

But more than many other band, Lynyrd Skynyrd has faced setbacks and tragedies, most dramatically in the loss of three of its members in a 1977 plane crash. With the death of Gary Rossington in March 2023, none of the original members remain alive. And their decades in the music business haven't come without a few strange twists.

They formed after a baseball accident

Two founding members of what became Lynyrd Skynyrd did not want to be rock stars as teenagers. Ronnie Van Zant (left), who was the band's first vocalist, and Gary Rossington (right), guitarist, aspired to futures with America's national pastime. Rossington told his family he wanted to head north and play for the New York Yankees when he was older, and Van Zant was on the cusp of entering minor league baseball when he shifted his career goals. Growing up, both boys played for local teams in Jacksonville, Florida.

In the summer of 1964, Van Zant was playing a game attended by Rossington and his friend Bob Burns, another young baseball enthusiast. According to Marley Brant's "Freebirds: The Lynyrd Skynyrd Story,"  while up to bat, Van Zant hit a line drive that beaned off Burns' head, knocking him out. They and Rossington soon became friends.

Besides baseball, the trio shared a love for music, particularly rock. Without a thought to future work, they put together a rock band, with Burns as the drummer. They were joined not long after by Allen Collins , another guitarist. Unlike the others, Collins was not a baseball enthusiast, and he was already determined to be a rock player. Gradually, the others came around to that career path.

They went through a lot of names

Lynyrd Skynyrd is set apart by its name. The improbable spelling led to their rather tongue-in-cheek first album title, "(Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)." But it wasn't the first, or the second, thing that the founding members of the band thought to call themselves.

Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Bob Burns, and Allen Collins first came together as a band in 1964, under the name My Backyard. That was soon changed to the Noble Five. Then it was a string of names that included the Wildcats, Conqueror Worm, Sons of Satan, and the Pretty Ones. Name changes were frequent and almost never according to anything more than a whim. One Percent stuck around a while; the boys saw a group of bikers sporting the phrase and took a shine to it. But when it started giving hecklers ideas, Van Zant decided a change was in order.

According to the documentary "If I Leave Here Tomorrow" (via Rolling Stone ), the new name, Lynyrd Skynyrd, was partly inspired by a line from the Allan Sherman song "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah." But it was also a mocking tribute to Rossington's high school gym teacher. Leonard Skinner was a strict disciplinarian who regularly chastised Rossington for his long hair, something Rossington said motivated him to drop out of school. The real Skinner didn't recognize his name or his former student when Lynyrd Skynyrd's fame took off, and he never liked rock and roll. But he told The Augusta Chronicle in 2009 that he had eventually befriended some of the band members, and even introduced them at a Jacksonville concert.

Ronnie Van Zant clashed with the band's producer

Lynyrd Skynyrd were already making a name for themselves in the American South when songwriter and music producer Al Kooper (right) chanced to see their show in Atlanta, Georgia. As he would later tell the story for Classic Rock , Kooper first worked his way into sitting in with the band for a few gigs, then began a long persuasion campaign to get them to sign with him. He won them over, not with a lucrative offer or irresistible creative arrangement, but with a $5,000 loan when the band's instruments were stolen.

When it came time to act as producer for the band he'd chased so doggedly, Kooper found himself in regular conflict with the group's leader. Ronnie Van Zant, despite his inexperience in the recording studio, was firmly in control of Lynyrd Skynyrd and kept a clear vision for what he wanted the band to be. Kooper, a seasoned musician by that time, supported the group but brought in definite opinions based on his experience. Both men were confrontational, and their arguments could get heated. But Van Zant respected Kooper's input and his discipline in the recording studio, and Kooper could admit when he was wrong. He initially opposed including the song "Simple Man" on the group's first album, but came around once it was recorded and provided an organ line.

They wrote under the influence of mushrooms

When Lynyrd Skynyrd was first formed, the band practiced at the home of whoever's mother was willing to endure them. But neighbors, and the local police, weren't always so accommodating. After one too many noise complaints, the band tired of being interrupted and decided to find somewhere more secluded to rehearse.

The place they found became known as Hell House, an abandoned shed in the swamps near Jacksonville, Florida. It had a tin roof, no air conditioning, and was surrounded by wildlife. After a late-night robbery, members of the band took turns guarding their shed and equipment. But Gary Rossington told Rolling Stone  that Lynyrd Skynyrd's first two albums were almost entirely written in Hell House.

According to the 2018 documentary "If I Leave Here Tomorrow" (via Rolling Stone ), they were written with some help from the local fauna. While they wrote and practiced, the band enjoyed tea brewed from mushrooms they found nearby. This led to a few hallucinatory practices, with floating keyboards and visible music notes.

The bandmates drank, did drugs, and fought each other

The original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd weren't the first or the last set of rock stars to have a wild time after reaching the big leagues. But their wild times awed even other rock and rollers. "They're like the scariest rock band ever," Dave Wyndorf of the band Monster Magnet told Spin , "because they really, totally believed it." Lynyrd Skynyrd drank together, did hard drugs together, and often fought together.

Fights between members sometimes ended with them going on stage with visible injuries and knocked-out teeth. They fought ahead of gigs, on the road, and out in public. A particularly nasty brawl in a Hamburg bar ended with Gary Rossington's hand shredded by broken glass and Ronnie Van Zant's hands broken.

As leader of Lynyrd Skynyrd, it fell to Van Zant (pictured) to break up fights and administer discipline. Several years older than his bandmates, he acted as a stern father figure who kept the band's sound focused. But Van Zant was as wild as the others when it came to drugs and drink, and just as violent. Disciplinary action could mean more fighting. True fatherhood, and a few outrageous bills for damages, made him reconsider some of his rowdiness by 1976, but even then, Van Zant told Los Angeles Times reporter Cameron Crowe (via The Uncool ) that his partying days weren't over.

'Sweet Home Alabama' was their only single to crack the Top 10

The original incarnation of Lynyrd Skynyrd produced several hit singles, but only "Sweet Home Alabama" made it into the Billboard Top 10. The song has been embraced by the state. The University of Alabama's football team uses it for a fight song, and the band were made honorary Alabama state militia lieutenant colonels in 1975. But if it weren't for that song, none of its writers would have any connection to Alabama.

Lynyrd Skynyrd formed in Florida, where Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington were from. Ed King, the third writer on the song, was originally from California. None of them had lived in Alabama. They were inspired to write the song, Van Zant told the Los Angeles Times (via The Uncool ), by Neil Young's "Southern Man." While Van Zant was a fan of Young's, he found the lyrics of "Southern Man" to be an unsophisticated caricature of the South's worst reputation, written by a non-southerner. "[It was] more of a joke than anything else," Van Zant said of "Sweet Home Alabama," one that Young appreciated. But besides its popularity at football games and on classic rock stations, the song has attracted sometimes confused interpretations. Critics, and even its writers, have not been able to consistently portray it as a pro-Southern pride anthem or a rebuke to racist elements of the Old South embodied by the likes of George Wallace.

Bob Burns left the band because of mental health issues

Bob Burns was with Lynyrd Skynyrd from the beginning. When the band hadn't even settled on the first of its many names, he was its drummer, and he filled that role for years, save for a few months when the 15-year-old Burns had to move away with his parents in 1969. And he indulged in all the usual temptations of the rock star life, the same as his bandmates.

But Burns struggled to cope with that degree of excess, and with the professional demands that came with being part of an active, touring rock band. He was still in his teens when Lynyrd Skynyrd left for a European tour in 1975; within weeks, his mental health began to suffer. Neither Burns nor his bandmates were prepared to deal with a mental health crisis at the time. With no other obvious choice, he left the band, booze, and hard drugs behind.

Burns was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which he told Examiner he managed with therapy and Prozac. Leaving Lynyrd Skynyrd didn't mean leaving behind its members, who were childhood friends of Burns. He remained in touch with them over the years, and even rejoined them for a one-time performance to mark their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2015, he was involved in a car accident and died of his injuries.

Before the plane crash, there was the car crash

The hedonistic life of a rock star caught up to Gary Rossington (pictured) in 1976. At that stage in his life, he was regularly mixing alcohol and Quaaludes. Under their influence, he got into a car crash in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. His injuries threw off Lynyrd Skynyrd's touring schedule for the year, something the band fined him for. As the most dramatic consequence of the intensifying effects of their carousing, the accident reinforced a sense frontman Ronnie Van Zant had that Lynyrd Skynyrd was in for trouble.

Under the influence of various drugs himself, Van Zant nevertheless agreed with Allen Collins that Rossington's accident merited a song. He claimed in an interview (via American Songwriter ) that he wrote the lyrics for "That Smell" while using cocaine and heroin. Without saying Rossington's name, the words to the song note the negative effects his drinking and drug use had on him, and they referenced the car accident.

"That Smell" didn't immediately snap Rossington or anyone else in the band out of their drug use. After the band's plane crash the following year, Rossington struggled with addiction to painkillers. But he survived his years with drugs and alcohol and eventually reached sobriety.

No one wanted to continue Lynyrd Skynyrd after the plane crash

One of the great tragedies in the history of rock and roll is the October 20, 1977, plane crash of Lynyrd Skynyrd . The band had just released their album "Street Survivors" and were flying to their next tour date when the plane crashed in Mississippi. Besides the pilot and co-pilot, the casualties included assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, guitarist Steve Gaines and his sister Cassie, and Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant (pictured).

Van Zant had regularly predicted that he wouldn't live to see 30, so his family and surviving bandmates weren't as shocked as they might have been at his death. But he was the undisputed leader of Lynyrd Skynyrd. He set the band's style, wrote or co-wrote most of their greatest hits up to that point, and acted as an older mentor figure to most of the group. His fate wasn't immediately disclosed to the survivors, all of whom suffered serious to severe injuries. Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, who had been at the front of the plane with Van Zant, suffered survivor's guilt. Only one member was fit enough to attend Van Zant's memorial.

Without Van Zant, and with their own long roads to recovery, the survivors saw no future for Lynyrd Skynyrd. According to Spin , Rossington, Collins, and Van Zant's widow Judy entered a formal legal agreement the next year to dissolve the band. For nine years, Lynyrd Skynyrd was gone.

Gary Rossington and Allen Collins fell out over a woman

Two years after the 1977 plane crash that killed Ronnie Van Zant and sent Lynyrd Skynyrd into a seemingly permanent dormancy, guitarist Allen Collins (pictured) did his best to get the music playing again. Though he and the other crash survivors all suffered severe injuries, they wanted to keep playing. The new group was called the Rossington-Collins Band, for Collins and fellow guitarist Gary Rossington.

The Rossington-Collins Band was a success, but hovering over its work were lingering issues from the Lynyrd Skynyrd days, drug and alcohol issues, and fresh tragedies. Collins' wife died during the band's first promotional tour, affecting his creative output. And he and Rossington, friends since high school, fell out over their competing affections for their lead vocalist, Dale Krantz.

Krantz chose Rossington. She told the Florida Times-Union (via Jacksonville.com ) that she was the one who proposed; Rossington answered with "Okay." They married in 1982, and the marriage lasted until the end of Rossington's life. But the year they wed was the year the Rossington-Collins Band disbanded. Collins formed the Allen Collins Band and kept playing for a few years, but after a car crash in 1986, he was left paralyzed from the chest down and unable to play.

The reformed Lynyrd Skynyrd broke a legal agreement

Allen Collins was paralyzed and estranged from Gary Rossington when the 10th anniversary of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash came up in 1987. The band's old record label, MCA, wanted to commemorate it in some way. However the survivors felt about the anniversary, several of them were in hot financial water. Using former bandmates Leon Wilkeson and Billy Powell as intermediaries, Collins — who was a joint rights holder to the Lynyrd Skynyrd name — reached out to Rossington about putting something together.

The new Lynyrd Skynyrd was led by Rossington but had Ronnie Van Zant's brother, Johnny, as the lead vocalist. Randall Hall took over for Collins' guitar lines; Collins himself wasn't in shape to do more than come out onstage for a few quick words. Old and new faces filled out the rest of the roster. A brief tour during 1987 completely sold out. But the reconstituted band violated an agreement Collins and Rossington had made with Van Zant's widow to retire the Lynyrd Skynyrd name for good after his death.

Judy Van Zant went to court after an unsuccessful effort to oust her from the band's decision making. The complicated settlement she reached with Lynyrd Skynyrd gave her a significant financial stake and a strong decision-making presence, one not always appreciated by the players. More than a decade later, Rossington publicly complained about Judy's cut, and what he felt was her stifling control over the band's image (per Florida Small Business ).

The band has a complicated relationship with the South

Lynyrd Skynyrd is deeply tied to the American South. It was founded in Florida, its most prominent members are southerners, and one of their most famous songs celebrates a Southern state none of the song's writers ever lived in. But the character and reputation of the South has evolved over the years, and Lynyrd Skynyrd's connections to the region have sometimes been controversial.

The original Lynyrd Skynyrd came to prominence during a time marked by the New South, an effort by Southern states to heed the civil rights movement and find a new identity. The band has been counted as a force in that movement, but their concerts and promotional materials made extensive use of the Confederate flag for years. The lyrics to "Sweet Home Alabama," specifically what stance it takes on George Wallace, have been interpreted various ways. Ronnie Van Zant claimed before his death that the band had no deliberate or consistent political stance.

Since Van Zant's death, interpretations of Lynyrd Skynyrd's politics and their representation of the South have remained confused. Rolling Stone described them as more conservative, based on the lyrics of "God and Guns." But the band has also responded to fan protests and largely abandoned Confederate imagery.

The original members are all gone

If you go to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert or listen to a new release from them, as of 2023, you won't find any representatives of the band's original 1969 lineup. Ronnie Van Zant died in the infamous 1977 plane crash. Allen Collins, forced out of music by injuries from a car crash, died in 1990 of pneumonia. Bob Burns, who retired for his mental health, died in a car accident in 2015.

For years, the one founding member to remain with Lynyrd Skynyrd was guitarist Gary Rossington (pictured). He became the leader, albeit not always the most forceful one, of the band after Van Zant's death and kept playing his guitar line even as the personnel around him changed. By 2020, with old age settling in for Rossington and other members, Lynyrd Skynyrd prepared a farewell tour, meant to end their lengthy treks around the country while still leaving the door open for new records and the occasional live show.

But Rossington's health was failing with age. He required quintuple bypass surgery in 2003 and struggled with heart trouble afterward. Even before the farewell tour began, shows were canceled due to his medical issues, as happened in Cascades Park in 2017 (per the Tallahassee Democrat ). Rossington died on March 5, 2023, with no cause of death given.

• Latest News

‘Cirrus’: When Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson Hit A Stratospheric Post-Bop High

‘chariots of fire’: vangelis’ chart-topping film score, ‘thirds’: another tasty serving from the james gang, ‘mccartney’: the lo-fi brilliance of paul’s self-titled debut album, when eric clapton and mick taylor went back to the bluesbreakers, ‘the big bill broonzy story’: a captivating tale of the blues, ‘the folk singer’: muddy waters’ tour de force, the commodores and the pointer sisters announce co-headlining tour, craft latino celebrates 60th anniversary of fania records with year-long celebration, seminal jimmy buffett albums to be reissued on vinyl, the beatles’ ‘let it be’ film to launch on disney+, the marley brothers announce ‘the legacy tour’, loyle carner, jessie ware confirmed for u.k.’s forwards festival 2024, zayn shares live performance video of new single ‘alienated’, what happened when the rolling stones played knebworth.

The Rolling Stones played one of their longest sets ever at the Knebworth Festival concert on August 21, 1976.

Published on

The Rolling Stones’ tour of Europe in 1976 began at the end of April in Frankfurt, West Germany, and finished in the third week of June in Vienna, Austria. On the 22 city, nine-country tour, during which they played in Yugoslavia and Spain for the first time, over 550,000 fans came to see them.

Two months later, on Saturday, August 21, after Mick celebrated his 33rd birthday with a party in Montauk, Long Island with Andy Warhol, The Stones were back on stage for what was their biggest show in the UK since the Hyde Park concert of 1969, and it was in front of their biggest paying crowd ever…somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 people.

The Glyndebourne of Rock

Fans paid $4.50 each for the concert at Knebworth Park, in Hertfordshire, dubbed at the time as The Glyndebourne of Rock, where The Stones were supported by the Don Harrison Band, Hot Tuna, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, Lynyrd Skynyrd , and 10cc. Skynyrd played a blistering set with their classic, “Free Bird” at its heart. What’s long been forgotten by many is that two members of Harrison’s band were Doug “Cosmo” Clifford and Stu Cook, two of the original members of Creedence Clearwater Revival .

Best Liz Phair Songs: 25 Extraordinary Tracks From The Indie Rock Pioneer

Backstage, Moet and Chandon hosted a champagne party for guests including Jack Nicholson, Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour, Germaine Greer, Traffic’s Jim Capaldi, John Paul Getty III, John Philips, Ian McLagan from The Faces, Van Morrison, and Paul & Linda McCartney . (The audience had to make do with tea or coffee at 12p a cup and a chicken curry that cost 55p.)

The performance

Technical problems dogged much of the show, resulting in The Stones going on very late, but they nonetheless played an extremely long set that helped make up for some earlier unrest among the crowd. They finally hit the stage at 11.30pm, 30 minutes after the concert was due to end, and ended up playing until just after 2am. Besides, Mick, Keith, Ronnie, Charlie, and Bill Wyman, the band was augmented by the brilliant American keyboard player Billy Preston and percussionist Ollie Brown.

The 30 songs set opened with “Satisfaction” and ran through almost The Stones’s entire career. It included “Little Red Rooster,” “Route 66,” and “Around and Around” from their earliest days, through classic singles including “Get Off Of My Cloud,” “Let’s Spend The Night Together,” “Honky Tonk Women,” and “Jumpin Jack Flash” as well as a short set within the set by Billy Preston who played, “Nothing From Nothing” and “Outta Space.”

Their set featured album tracks from Beggars Banquet (“Stray Cat Blues” and “Street Fighting Man,” their closer), Let It Bleed (“You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” “Country Honk,” and “Midnight Rambler”), Sticky Fingers (“Brown Sugar”, “Wild Horses,” “You Gotta Move,” and “Dead Flowers”) and Exile On Main St. (“Rip This Joint,” “Tumbling Dice,” and “Happy”), right up to their latest LP, Black and Blue , from which they played “Hot Stuff,” “Hand Of Fate,” “Hey Negrita,” and “Fool To Cry.” There were also tracks from their previous two albums, Goats Head Soup (“Star Star”) and It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll (the title track, “If You Can’t Rock Me,” and “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”).

Power and relevance

The BBC’s Listener magazine said of the show, “Charlie Watts looked very neat and as like Bertrand Russell as ever: one’s feet were with him and one’s pulse with Bill Wyman.” While The Sunday Mirror said, “Scores of girls went topless as the scorching sun sent temperatures soaring in mid-afternoon. Some plain-clothes policemen mingled with the crowd, but only one arrest was made for an alleged drugs offense – even though ‘pot’ was said to be on sale.”

Perhaps The Melody Maker summed Knebworth 1976 up best of all, “The Rolling Stones drew a vast crowd estimated variously at between 110,000 and 250,000, to an exhausting, drawn-out event… it showed once again that they still have power and relevance.” Some things never change…

Listen to the best of The Rolling Stones on Apple Music and Spotify .

13 Comments

August 22, 2016 at 2:39 am

RocknRoooool!

August 22, 2016 at 4:30 am

AArtemus Pyle of Skynyrd was quoted as saying “… and we blew the STONES off the stage.” W/ Allen Gary and Steve hell yeah they did. But 10 cc, come on!

August 22, 2016 at 8:23 am

Stones were untouchable at Knebworth. Even though 10cc openings song was started with “Just like a rolling stones Im outside looking in”. Im Mandy Fly me

dpmhiaddict

August 21, 2017 at 9:15 pm

There was just an original copy of the festival poster listed on ebay, beautiful design. It sold for just £80, a bargain I think.

August 22, 2017 at 9:00 am

Tickets were £4.50 not their best gig as lot of things went wrong , Keith’s guitar packed in at one point so he just casually lit up a ciggy..

David Patefield

August 22, 2017 at 10:53 am

After Travelling over night to reach Knebworth, then spending the day sitting in the sweltering heat it was difficult just to keep awake waiting for the Stones to finally appear,

August 22, 2017 at 12:08 pm

Moi aussi j’y étais!

Douglas Ferns

August 20, 2019 at 8:12 pm

Lynyrd Skynyrd played a brilliant set at Knebworth and really got the entire crowd bouncing so much that 10cc refused to go onstage immediately, which led to a lot of criticism from the audience. As it turned out, their performance was entirely forgettable but made up for when the Stones eventually got to start. Atmosphere was outstanding and, unlike other festivals of that scale, I can’t recall any lawlessness. Probably people were too hot to be bothered with fighting,etc.

July 2, 2021 at 1:04 pm

ah nostalgia ain’t what it used to be absolutely the best band on the day was skynerd fabulous little of we know it would be the last time we would see them.the worst bands were Harrison 10cc and the stones thanks to 10cc and their technicians delivering a very late and mediocre performance by the time the stones got on stage they were smashed on what ever they had been on a their private party. meanwhile everyone else was hung over hungry and cold never been to a stone’s concert since nor wanted too. skynerd were simply outstanding

March 31, 2022 at 4:57 pm

Forgive me if i`m wrong but I do remember someone getting on stage to keep everyone’s attention by having a wank, does anybody else remember that, I wonder.

September 29, 2022 at 4:36 am

I was in the USAF stationed at RAF Bentwaters and went there with 3 of my friends in my Triumph Vitesse. When the concert was over we’d been up for 2 straight days and I begged someone to stay awake with me for the drive back to Ipswich. All three of them were sleeping before we got out of the parking lot. It’s the only time in my life I fell asleep while driving. I hit the curb and the adrenaline rush kept me awake for the rest of the way home. None of my friends even woke up and had no idea we all could’ve died.

May 28, 2023 at 2:29 pm

Lynyrd Skynyrd were excellent but so were the Stones. All the other bands were good except Hot Tuna who were booed for turning their back on the fans and playing for themselves. The delays grew between each act to the point where it seemed deliberate, given the precision of the delay (extra half hour each break) and the light show of both the 10cc and the Stones. Allman Brother’s Jessica was played at least once in every break. Heroin was openly on sale although the dealers did get some stick. Stoned US military were sat in front of us leaving us to wonder about the defence of the West. Leaving in the early hours of the morning stepped over and on lots of sleeping people. First experience of a Festival – music great, environment not so much

Martha Speed

January 19, 2024 at 9:17 am

Yes I also remember the guy wanking on stage while waiting for 10cc I think. Also a huge cheer and laughter when someone followed him on to mop the stage! I was only 16 then, my first big concert, large screens were ‘hi tech’. Dancing to Free Bird and The Stones performance are my outstanding memories 🙂

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Lynyrd Skynyrd interview: The Last Stand

As one of the great American bands prepares to quit the road, we catch up with Gary Rossington, Rickey Medlocke and Johnny Van Zant to talk about their band and its incredible tale

Hamburg, Germany, mid-October 1975

A bloodbath is coming. Lynyrd Skynyrd have been drinking – and hard – at the hotel bar: peppermint schnapps, ice-cold in frozen glasses. These good ol’ boys have never tried schnapps before; whisky and bourbon are their poisons, Scotch and Jack Daniel’s all the way, every day, every night. Next to those, peppermint schnapps tastes sweet as iced tea. It’s easy to knock back. Too easy. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have a gig to play tonight. 

Ronnie Van Zant, their firework of a singer, is steaming drunk on the stuff. When Ronnie gets drunk he starts trouble, usually with his fists. Tonight is no exception. 

Back in the band’s room, it kicks off. Ronnie starts getting mad at someone nobody can remember for something no one is quite sure of, swinging his fists at the nearest person – Skynyrd’s road manager. Someone tries to pull him away. Then someone else tries. Then everyone tries. Doesn’t work. Only makes him madder, meaner, nastier, a sawed-off Hulk in a Stetson. 

Ronnie takes a bottle and – smash! – busts it over the road manager’s head (and you’ve got to hit somebody hard to break a bottle). He looks around, spots Gary Rossington , one of the band’s guitarists. “I’m gonna cut your hands,” Ronnie hisses/yells. “You’re not gonna play guitar ever again.” 

He comes in slashing the broken bottle like a dagger and does what he promised: cuts Rossington’s hands once, twice… nine, ten, 11 times. Blood everywhere. (Rossington will end up in hospital, having his hands stitched and his career saved by German nurses.) 

Back in the hotel room there’s glass and gore on the carpet, venom in the air. It takes Artimus Pyle, drummer and ex-marine, with a wild streak as wide as the St John’s River, to stop it getting worse. 

Classic Rock Newsletter

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!

Artimus is mad. He starts throwing Ronnie around. First time in Ronnie’s life that this has happened; or at least the first time anyone’s seen it. He ends up pinned to the bed, being cussed out by 180lbs of raging ex-serviceman while everyone else wonders what to do about the mess. 

Like we said: a bloodbath. The Bloodbath In Hamburg. Thing is, Lynyrd Skynyrd still play their show, sliced hands and all. Welcome to the good times.

Winnipeg, Canada, late-March 2019

That all happened. Gary Rossington, the man whose hands were cut up by Ronnie Van Zant all those years ago and who is one of only two surviving members of all Skynyrd’s 70s line-ups, can vouch for it. “Sometimes I can feel things,” he says, holding out his hands. “Feel it in the nerves. But I played the gig. I had to.” 

We’re a long way from Hamburg today. Twentyone floors above the sub-zero streets of the desolate downtown below. 

Rossington, 67, is no longer the glowering young buck he once was – Prince Charming with a slide guitar. Serious health issues have left him frail and gaunt. He’s had trouble with his heart for 15 or 16 years now. He underwent major surgery a few years ago: a quintuple bypass, a pacemaker installed. He’s got 11 or 12 stents in his body to keep his veins open, including one in his stomach. He’s had at least one heart attack on stage. There’ll be no bloodbath for him today or any other day. “Anybody hits me, I’ll be dead,” he says wryly. 

When it comes down to it, Rossington is the reason why this tour – dubbed Last Of The Street Survivors , in reference to the 1977 album that was supposed to be the original band’s crowning glory but ended up their tragic epitaph – will be Skynyrd’s last stand. 

Tomorrow night they’ll play at a nearby icehockey arena, in front of 10,000 Canadians for whom this music has been a soundtrack to their lives. They’ll do the same a few days later, and a few days after that. But next year, at some unspecified date, Skynyrd will retire from the road they first stepped out on 50 years, countless miles and countless concerts ago. 

“Oh, it’s just because of me,” Rossington says. “Everybody kind of knew I was getting sick, and we just called it. We said we need to do a farewell tour, because we wanted to go out with our boots on and still sounding great at night and doing well. But I’m too old and sick now to tour any more.”

Still in Winnipeg, Canada

“It’s a survival story,” says Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie’s young brother and singer with Lynyrd Skynyrd for the past 32 years. “Look at what this band has been through, look where it came from, look at what the songs are about. It’s about common people. I don’t know about you, but most of us have had drink or drug problems. You’ve got a song like That Smell . Most of us love our momma. We got a song about being a Simple Man . It all comes down to Ronnie. He was a poet for the people.” 

Johnny’s sitting in the same hotel room as Gary Rossington, except it’s an hour earlier. He’s short and loud and funny, with a tattoo of Jesus on his forearm. He’s the life and soul of any room. He used to be even more of the life and soul, before he quit drinking six years ago; the sort of man who would get drunk, fall down a spiral staircase, break his back, then play a show (which once happened). “

Johnny always likes to say that Ronnie was the quarterback, and he was the receiver,” says Rickey Medlocke , the third of Skynyrd’s three senior partners. “Ronnie threw the ball and Johnny caught the ball and took off with it. And he’s still running.” 

Rickey was a member of Skynyrd when they were still a nothing band from Jacksonville, Florida, but bailed to find his own fortune before it all took off. He rejoined in 1995, nearly a decade after the band got back together. 

Rickey is 69, the oldest member of the band, two years older than Gary but with more energy than anyone you’ll ever meet, whatever their age. He’s got a different view of ‘farewell’ to most people. 

“Retirement is not in my vocabulary,” he says. “I know me. I got too much energy to sit around and go: ‘Am I gonna go fishing today?’ ‘Am I gonna cut the lawn?’ 

Rickey and Johnny couldn’t help notice that Gary Rossington wasn’t the man he was. “Johnny and I seen it going on, and we had talked about it on the bus several times,” says Rickey. “I agreed with it. It’s kind of bittersweet. It always is. But you reach a certain point in your life where you look at it and go: ‘It’s gotta change.’” 

He shakes his head. The good times will carry on a long while yet, at least for Rickey Medlocke.

You all know the story of Lynyrd Skynyrd . How they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps out of the Florida dirt and went on to become one of the greatest American bands of the 70s. How they hit on a brand new sound: one part country music, one part R&B, three parts rock’n’roll. How this sound – which somehow got the name ‘southern rock’ – has echoed down subsequent decades, picked up by 10,000 bands who came after them. How they carved out a reputation as brawlers, badasses and hellraisers, back when being a brawler, a badass and a hellraiser actually meant something. 

How their recording career was barely five albums old when the plane that was carrying them fell from the sky into a Mississippi swamp on October 20, 1977, killing Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, his backing-vocalist sister Cassie, their tour manager Danny Kilpatrick and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot, leaving a heap of grief and a whole lot of ‘What if?’s. 

How they reunited a decade later with Johnny standing in Ronnie’s cowboy boots. How they endured even more loss since then, more than pretty much any other band out there. How Gary Rossington, one of only two men still standing from that classic line-up, has carried the band on all this time down the line, and will do so until he can’t any more.

A baseball field in Jacksonville, Florida, some time in 1964

Ronnie Van Zant, aged 16 and a badass even then, has just hit a foul ball. It flies straight into the head of another kid, Bob Burns, a drummer, and knocks him flat on his ass. It’s the mis-hit that changes music. 

The 14-year-old Gary Rossington is there watching the game, and so is another aspiring guitarist kid named Allen Collins. They gather round Bob as Ronnie runs over to see if he’s killed someone. It doesn’t take long for them to stop worrying about head injuries and start talking about music. Everyone’s in a band, or wants to be. Someone suggests they jam. 

The jams turn into rehearsals, their rehearsals turn into shows, their shows turn into a career of sorts. 

Ronnie is two, three years older, and takes the younger kids under his wing. Their dads are all dead or absent, and although they’ll never admit it, Ronnie’s a father figure to them. He teaches them to drive, teaches them to drink, teaches them about girls and about life. 

He drills them hard, too. Long hours at the out-of-the-way tin shack of a rehearsal room they christen the Hell House. They call themselves the One Per Cent, and Rickey Medlocke does a few shows as their lighting guy. Somewhere along the line the name gets changed to Lynyrd Skynyrd, after their hated high-school sports teacher. Rickey replaces Bob Burns on drums, then Bob Burns comes back and replaces Rickey. 

There’s seven years of busting their guts up and down the highway, no one paying any notice to them, not even when an 18-year-old Allen Collins brings in the beginnings of a song called Free Bird .

Members come and go, but Ronnie, Gary and Allen stick with it. Then success comes, and that’s when things get crazy.

The legend of Ronnie Van Zant hangs over Lynyrd Skynyrd even now, so huge was his personality and so important his legacy. Rossington talks about him with a mixture of love and awe. 

“Ronnie was the boss,” he says. “He knew what he wanted and he knew how to get the best out of people. We’d be writing a song at the Hell House, and he’d say: ‘Whoever comes back tomorrow and plays the solo better, they’ll have it.’ It was like: ‘All right, I’m going to do it.’ It was like a battle every night. The only thing we fought about was the music. Or somebody got too drunk. Usually Ronnie. And he was a badass when he was drunk. He liked a fight.” 

Was it actually any fun being in Lynyrd Skynyrd in the seventies? 

“Oh it was the most fun in the world,” he says with a smile.

The first time Lynyrd Skynyrd came to Britain, in ’74, their drummer had a breakdown and threw a cat out of a window. This was Bob Burns, one of the original foursome. Burns had taken a little too much acid and watched The Exorcist one too many times – bad enough individually, a clusterfuck of the mind together. 

“He thought that cat was possessed,” says Rossington, “and he went a little nuts. Threw it out the window.” 

Burns was soon out of the band. He was a character in a band full of ’em. 

“Bob Burns had super-strength,” Rossington says. “He was like The Hulk. He would hit a wall, and if you or me hit it there might be a little dent, but if he hit it it would go in six inches. He threw Ronnie around, too. They were wrestling, trying not to hurt each other.” 

Now Bob Burns is gone too, taken in a car crash in 2015 at the age of 64. (No one knows what happened to that cat.) Towards the end of Lynyrd Skynyrd shows today, a pyramid of names flashes up on the screen behind them. It’s a tribute to fallen bandmates, of which Lynyrd Skynyrd have more than most. 

Bob Burns is on there. So are Allen Collins and Leon Wilkeson and Billy Powell and Ed King and Steve and Cassie Gaines and Dean Kilpatrick and Ean Evans and Hughie Thomasson, those last two both members of the latter-day incarnation. And right at the top of the pyramid is Ronnie Van Zant. 

“Oh man, I miss those guys,” says Rossington. “Miss ’em bad.”

Knebworth Park, UK, August 21 1976: bodies as far as the eye can see

Follow the camera as it swoops over the crowd – all 100,000 of ’em – and hops the fence backstage. Follow it into one of the cabins, where Skynyrd are sitting before they open for the Rolling Stones later that day. Gary and Ronnie are there, and so is Jack Nicholson, smoking a little pot. Jack’s talking about the thing he loves to talk about: Jack Nicholson. But it’s entertaining as hell – getting high with God.

Flash forward. Ronnie’s gotten into a backstage drinking contest with John Paul Getty Jr, one-eared offspring of an oil billionaire. Ronnie’s truculent today, but funny with it: “Let’s bet a million dollars I can out-drink ya,” he says. Getty has a million dollars, but Ronnie sure doesn’t. They reach for their shots like a couple of gunslingers going for their pistols: blam, blam, blam. Ronnie’s all over it. “Ya owe me a million dollars!” he hollers triumphantly. He never gets it. 

Flash forward again. Skynyrd are closing their set with Free Bird. They’ve been told – no, ordered – to stay off the Stones’ tongue-shaped ‘ego-ramp’, or Mick won’t be happy. Ronnie’s having none of it. “Let’s go,” he says, and they go, all the way down Mick’s tongue. 

Turns out they were right. Mick wasn’t happy. It’s hours before the Stones go on. Ronnie thinks it’s cos they’re too scared to follow them. That’s what Lynyrd Skynyrd wanted: to blow the Stones away. And according to everyone who saw them, they did.

Gary Rossington doesn’t like to talk about what happened that day in October 1977 when Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane went down. This is partly because of the crushing emotional weight that comes with it, and partly because it’s all such a blur and he can’t rightly remember much of it at all. 

But he can remember what happened when the pilot told everyone the plane was in trouble: “Ronnie was asleep. Dean, our road manager, woke him up cos the pilot said: ‘Put on your seat belt, put your head between your legs…’, all the technical stuff. He had to get up from sleeping to do all that and he was mad, grumpy: ‘Oh man, I hope this ain’t bullshit.’ Cos he didn’t know what was happening or what was gonna happen.” 

Rossington can remember the very last thing Ronnie said to him. “I do remember, cos we were right next to each other. Everybody was freaking out. Ronnie said: ‘If it’s our time, you can kiss my ass goodbye.’ He just said that.”

Forty-two years after Ronnie died, Gary Rossington still talks to his old friend. 

“Sometimes,” he says. “Yeah, all the time, really. If there’s stuff going or we got things to do, or if we’re fixing to go somewhere, I say: ‘Come on, man, help us down here.’ I used to say to my wife, Dale: ‘I wish I could talk to Ronnie, ask him what I should do here.’ And she’d say: ‘What would you ask him?’ So I’d tell her, and she’d go: ‘Well, you just talked to him.’ Cos I told everything out and it made me talk better.” 

Johnny Van Zant talks to Ronnie too. 

“Yeah. I say it on stage sometimes: ‘Come on, man, kick me in the ass, I’m feeling a little down tonight. Come on, let’s get it.’ But I’m a religious man. I don’t think he’s gone, and I know I’ll see him again one day.”

You’re damn well right we’re a tribute band. We pay tribute to those that started this band, every single night Johnny Van Zant

Ronnie used to talk a lot about stepping back from Lynyrd Skynyrd. He wanted to still be involved – writing songs, managing the band – but his throat was getting sore on that last tour and he didn’t want to sing any more. He wanted to get Johnny to take over, even back then. 

“He always said: ‘Johnny’s the best singer in the family,’” says Rossington. “He also said: ‘If I die, y’all send him to Julliard [performing arts school in New York City].” 

Ronnie used to talk about “If I die” a lot too, like he knew he was going to go early. 

“I remember one of the last times we were together, down in Miami,” says Rossington. “We were high and stuff one night, and Ronnie said: ‘Man, I don’t think I’m going to last a while. Y’all keep going. Make sure you keep going.’ Mostly it just went in one ear and out the other. But I do remember that cos it was a heavy time, and we wrote What’s Your Name that night. That’s the reason I remember so clearly.” 

Ronnie Van Zant died aged 29, a few weeks short of his thirtieth birthday. He was right about that all along. And “Y’all keep going.” Turns out he was right about that too.

September 20, 1987, the Concord Pavillion, California: three weeks short of 10 years since the plane crash

Lynyrd Skynyrd are kicking off their comeback run, the Tribute tour. Gary is there, and bassist Leon Wilkeson and keyboard player Billy Powell and drummer Artimus Pyle. Allen Collins is there too, but not playing, not since he was paralysed from the waist down in a drunken car smash a year earlier. And Johnny is there, standing in for his big brother. 

“I didn’t want to do that tour at all,” says Johnny. “We had fans out there who would go: ‘Well, this ain’t the real Skynyrd, they’re a tribute band.’ And I didn’t want to hurt the name of Lynyrd Skynyrd. And there’s been times in this thirty-two years that the name’s been hurt, with lawsuits and this and that, and people in general.” 

Gary: “If Johnny hadn’t done it, it wouldn’t have happened. There’s no one else who could sing those songs.” 

Johnny: “What changed my mind? I walked into a conference room and I seen Billy, Leon, Gary, Artimus and Allen Collins, all those guys, sitting at a table, wanting to do this. And I went: ‘Hey, I gotta at least try. Ronnie would want me to try.’” 

It was just as hard for Gary. 

“I remember freaking out when we first started the tour,” he says. “I’d be all upset because the guys weren’t there. I’d see all these new faces, and it was so weird to me. To see Johnny up there, not to see Allen or Steve… Real weird.” 

Johnny didn’t sing Free Bird – Skynyrd’s most famous song – for a whole year at the start of that tour. Instead they just left the mic stand there on the stage while the band played the song. 

The way Johnny saw it, it was his brother’s song and only his brother should sing it. Gary kept asking him to do it: “Play the song, play the song.” Then one night in Sacramento, California… 

Rossington: “I’d had a few drinks. I said: ‘Johnny, your brother wrote those lyrics to be heard. You need to sing it, man.’ I said: ‘If you don’t go out there and sing it, I’m not going to play tonight. Why should I do it?’ And he went: ‘Alright.’ So we went and did it and everybody loved it.”

Despite everything Lynyrd Skynyrd have been through even in the past 30-odd years, there are still people who aren’t having it, who still think they’re a tribute band. Johnny Van Zant: “You’re damn well right we’re a tribute band. We pay tribute to those that started this band every single night. But we’re more than that. We’re family.” 

Rickey Medlocke: “No. I consider this the real Lynyrd Skynyrd. I don’t consider it a tribute band, a copy band, whatever you want to call it. Why? Because you got Gary Rossington, one of the founding members. You got me, I was in the early band. And you got Johnny Van Zant, the original singer’s younger brother. To me, whoever is standing up there, it’s Lynyrd Skynyrd.” 

Gary Rossington: “A lot of people were mad at us for going back, and still are. There’s some people still think we shouldn’t be doing this, but I’m doing it for the memory of the band, and Ronnie and Allen and our dream and the music we wrote. I want to share it until I go. I mean, life is over like that, so while I’m here I want to keep it going.”

When Gary Rossington was pulled from the wreckage of the plane, he was busted up bad: both legs, both arms, every one of his ribs and his pelvis, all broken. (Note: drummer Artimus Pyle was less busted up. He made it to a nearby farm, only to be shot at by the owner, who couldn’t deal with the bloodied apparition approaching him.) 

The crash changed Rossington’s view on death, like it would if it had happened to you or me. As he lay in his hospital bed, watching preachers clutching bibles come and go, he wondered why he was still here and Ronnie and the rest weren’t. 

“There’s a reason,” he says. “Nobody knows what that reason is. You’re not supposed to know. Maybe one day you’re going to save someone or help someone. I’ve had a lot of chances. I was in a car wreck the year before that that I could’ve died in. Two, actually. Between them and the drugs and the drinking and all the other bullshit and a million other things, I shouldn’t be here. So every day’s a gift to me. I really thank God.” 

It’s hard out there sometimes. In 2015 he had a heart attack (not the first) right up there on stage. 

“Oh, it happened,” he says. “Then when I went to the hospital I was kind of over it. It didn’t hurt me that bad, not to where I couldn’t come back.” 

He shrugs. “Everyone dies. It’s just a matter of when. So you got to get right with the Man.”

Johnny worries about Gary. Of course he does. The two have too much intertwined history, have been through too many things together and apart, for him not to. 

Johnny: “He’s my brother. I love him. I don’t want anything to happen to him. If he called me up right now and said: ‘Hey, I wanna go home’, I’d be fine with it. Cos he’s the one who called me to say: ‘I want you to be a part of this.’ And he was Ronnie’s brother. So yeah, I do worry about Gary.” 

Does Lynyrd Skynyrd keep him going? Johnny: “I think it does. Carrying on his brothers’ wishes and dreams that they started years and years ago. I think it makes him feel more close to them. I think he feels a responsibility for that, cos he lived through the crash. This is what he wanted to do. And he’s done it with great honour.”

Gary Rossington has a saying he picked up from either The Beatles or the Rolling Stones , he can’t remember which: ‘You don’t retire from this business, it retires you.’ It’s 55 years and counting since he met Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins and Bob Burns on that baseball field. Back then none of them could have imagined how this would all turn out.

“This is all I’ve ever known and wanted to do since I was thirteen years old – play guitar and be in a band and all that,” Rossington says “I’m just some dumb guitar player who quit school to make it in a band. We all did – me and Ronnie and Allen and Bob.” 

What’s been your greatest achievement? 

“Staying power and lasting so long. People still love the music. People grew up hearing Free Bird and those songs… Ronnie and Allen and Stevie and them, they didn’t live long enough to know that we would last another thirty or forty years, that those songs would still be on the radio. Allen used to talk about it. We’d be sitting in the car and he’d go: ‘Can you believe we hear our stuff on the radio?’ That was when Free Bird was still a coupla’ years old. We didn’t know it would happen like that. Nobody did.”

Gary Rossington, the last man who today embodies Skynyrd’s past and their present, the only one who has been there for the whole damn ride. Question is: if he was out of Lynyrd Skynyrd for whatever reason, would the band carry on without him? 

Johnny Van Zant doesn’t think so: “I wouldn’t want to even think about that. I don’t think any of us would want to do that.” 

Neither does Rickey Medlock: “No. We wouldn’t do that. And I wouldn’t want to do that. If I can’t have him standing there next to me, just like Johnny I don’t want to be there. I wouldn’t think about it.” 

Gary Rossington has a different take on it: “Well, they’re not supposed to because of legal reasons. But if Johnny and Rickey wanted to do it, I wouldn’t mind myself. They’re playing our music to the people, and the people would come to hear the original band’s music. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. If they wanted to do it and the management thought it would be a good idea… It would be weird, though, because none of the original guys would be in it.”

Thing is, Lynyrd Skynyrd aren’t done yet. Not as long as Gary Rossington has breath in his body and fire in his soul, and despite everything he’s still got both. 

They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Especially if you’re Lynyrd Skynyrd. But Skynyrd have plans all the same. 

No one – not Rossington, not Van Zant, not Medlocke – has put an expiration date on all this. They’re stopping touring for sure, but that doesn’t mean they’re quitting playing live altogether. There could be charity shows or benefits for the military. There could be a Vegas residency, maybe one on the East Coast too. And they’re definitely talking about recording a new album. Maybe more. 

“We got songs,” says Medlocke. “Lots of ’em. I’m guessing some of them have been written as long as fifteen years ago, some are newer. But we still need to write a few more. It’s a time thing. But we’ll definitely do a new album.” 

But one day, whenever it comes, Lynyrd Skynyrd will cease to exist. And when that happens it will leave a hole. They won’t be the first band to quit, but with them it will be different. Black Sabbath have gone, but they’re all still here. Led Zeppelin have gone, but they’re mostly still here. But when Lynyrd Skynyrd go – when Gary Rossington is no longer out there on the road, for whatever reason – well, that really will feel like the passing of an era. 

“We’ll still be around,”says Rossington. He pauses for a heartbeat, high above the cold Canadian streets. Aghost of a smile. “The music will still be here.” 

In case you were wondering, Ronnie Van Zant never did apologise to Gary Rossington for slicing up his hands with a broken bottle on the night of the Bloodbath in Hamburg. 

“Nah,” says Rossington. “He just said: ‘Catch the first flight home tomorrow.’ I said: ‘Nah.’ And that was it. You just gotta do what you gotta do.” 

That’s been Lynyrd Skynyrd all along. Doing what they gotta do, no matter what.

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock , Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw , not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo , the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill . He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

Big Big Train announce additional London headline show

“We didn’t force a connection, it just happened.” Steve Howe remembers a fledgling Yes supporting Jethro Tull in America in 1971

Oceans Of Slumber share daring new video for brand new song Where Gods Fear To Speak

Most Popular

• What's Hot:
• Win Up to $30,000
• Making a Difference
• WBLM CONCERTS
• WBLM Morning Show On Demand
• Storm Closings
• WBLM on Alexa
• WBLM Newsletter
• Station Merch

The Original Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Last Maine Concert In 1977

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

44 years ago today, the classic lineup of  Lynyrd Skynyrd  played the  Civic Center  for the first and last time.  The legendary Southern rockers brought their  Gimme Back My Bullets  tour to town.

The new album had been out since February of 1976 and FM rock radio stations were spinning the title track,  Double Trouble  and  All I Can Do is Write About It .

This show was also bolstered by the popularity of the live album, One More From the Road featuring the addition of guitarist and vocalist, Steve Gaines.

On June 14, 1977, it was the Portland arrival of Ronnie Van Zant and the guitar triple threat of Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, and Steve Gaines along with Billy Powell on keyboards, Leon Wilkinson on bass and Artimus Pyle on drums.

The Cumberland County Civic Center was newly opened for just over 3 months. This was their third Maine appearance with previous visits being at Lewiston's Central Maine Youth Center in 1976 and a Bangor show in 1974 for their first time in Maine.

And holy sh*t...opening the show that night were  Foreigner  and  .38 Special . Maine concert goers witnessed some impressive history with the fourth rock show ever at Portland’s biggest indoor venue.

At that time, no one knew this would be the last Maine appearance ever for the original lineup of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Sadly four months later, their chartered plane ran out of fuel and crashed in Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and back-up singer Cassie Gaines all perished.

A decade later, the surviving band members came together for a reunion tour with Ronnie’s younger brother Johnny on lead vocals. That show came to Portland on September 2, 1988.

Since then, Lynyrd Skynyrd continued to tour keeping the legacy alive in concert led by Johnny Van Zant along with co-founder, Gary Rossington. In 2019, they hit the road to say goodbye to fans on their Farewell Tour. That trek included two stops in our neck of the woods with one show on May 31 at the Bank of NH Pavilion in Gilford and another one the following day in Maine at Darling's Waterfront Pavilion in Bangor.

Watch this incredible footage captured just a few weeks after they visited Portland, Maine in 1977.

There’s really nothing like the crazy energy of a ’70s rock show.

Top 30 American Classic Rock Bands of the '70s

Look: full list of the best places to live in maine, more from 102.9 wblm.

More From Forbes

Lynyrd skynyrd’s timeless hits help the band scale the charts.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 1976: Members of Southern Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd (L-R Leon Wilkeson, Billy ... [+] Powell, Gary Rossington, Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins) pose by their trailer backstage at an outdoor concert in October, 1976 in California. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Lynyrd Skynyrd still commands a massive fan base in the U.S. to this day. From die-hard supporters who would call the rockers among their favorites to casual listeners who only know a song or two, everyone who likes the band’s music is helping them rise on a number of Billboard charts this week.

All Time Greatest Hits by Lynyrd Skynyrd is up on a trio of rankings published by Billboard . The compilation has been charting for years, and not only is it not slowing down, it’s actually improving–both in terms of where the set lands on a handful of lists, but also when looking at how many units it’s shifted.

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s compilation leaps nearly 20 spots on the Billboard 200 this week. That’s one of the most impressive gains on the ranking of the most-consumed albums in the U.S. It’s notable that the rockers’ project is still present, but it’s especially worth pointing out that it shoots as high and as far as it does this frame.

This week, All Time Greatest Hits improves from No. 134 to No. 115. The compilation moved another 10,088 equivalent units in the U.S., according to Luminate. That sum is up nearly 6% from the period prior.

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s collection of beloved singles only climbs one rung on two of Billboard’s rock charts. The project steps up to No. 26 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums list. It’s comfortable at No. 22 on the Top Rock Albums roster this frame.

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024.

All Time Greatest Hits was released in 2000, and since then, it has risen and fallen on and off the Billboard charts, though it never stays away for too long when it vanishes. It only rose as high as No. 56 on the Billboard 200, which is somewhat surprising, as it’s managed to live on the tally for just under five years–a milestone that is quickly approaching.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

• Statistics Stats
• You are here:
• Lynyrd Skynyrd
• May 31, 1976 Setlist

Lynyrd Skynyrd Setlist at Myrtle Beach Convention Center, Myrtle Beach, SC, USA

• Edit setlist songs
• Edit venue & date
• Edit set times
• Add to festival
• Report setlist

Tour: Gimme Back My Bullets Tour statistics Add setlist

Sorry, there are no songs in this setlist yet, but ...

If you were there then add whatever song you remember!

And you might also get help in the setlist request forum

Edits and Comments

3 activities (last edit by bendobrin , 29 Dec 2018, 18:53 Etc/UTC )

More from Lynyrd Skynyrd

• More Setlists
• Artist Statistics
• Add setlist

Related News

Setlist History: Keith Moon Passes Out On Stage, Replaced by Fan

Setlist History: Lynyrd Skynyrd Saves Venue and Records Live LP

Lynyrd skynyrd gig timeline.

• May 29 1976 Groves Stadium Winston-Salem, NC, USA Add time Add time
• May 30 1976 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Washington, DC, USA Add time Add time
• May 31 1976 Myrtle Beach Convention Center This Setlist Myrtle Beach, SC, USA Add time Add time
• Jun 30 1976 Cobo Arena Detroit, MI, USA Add time Add time
• Jul 02 1976 Hara Arena Dayton, OH, USA Add time Add time

Concert People

Share or embed this setlist.

Use this setlist for your event review and get all updates automatically!

<div style="text-align: center;" class="setlistImage"><a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/lynyrd-skynyrd/1976/myrtle-beach-convention-center-myrtle-beach-sc-63c4f263.html" title="Lynyrd Skynyrd Setlist Myrtle Beach Convention Center, Myrtle Beach, SC, USA 1976, Gimme Back My Bullets" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.setlist.fm/widgets/setlist-image-v1?id=63c4f263" alt="Lynyrd Skynyrd Setlist Myrtle Beach Convention Center, Myrtle Beach, SC, USA 1976, Gimme Back My Bullets" style="border: 0;" /></a> <div><a href="https://www.setlist.fm/edit?setlist=63c4f263&amp;step=song">Edit this setlist</a> | <a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlists/lynyrd-skynyrd-1bd6ad50.html">More Lynyrd Skynyrd setlists</a></div></div>

Last.fm Event Review

[url=https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/lynyrd-skynyrd/1976/myrtle-beach-convention-center-myrtle-beach-sc-63c4f263.html][img]https://www.setlist.fm/widgets/setlist-image-v1?id=63c4f263[/img][/url] [url=https://www.setlist.fm/edit?setlist=63c4f263&amp;step=song]Edit this setlist[/url] | [url=https://www.setlist.fm/setlists/lynyrd-skynyrd-1bd6ad50.html]More Lynyrd Skynyrd setlists[/url]

Tour Update

Marquee memories: jesse mccartney.

• Jesse McCartney
• Apr 15, 2024
• Apr 14, 2024
• Apr 13, 2024
• Apr 12, 2024
• Apr 11, 2024
• Apr 10, 2024
• FAQ | Help | About
• Terms of Service
• Ad Choices | Privacy Policy
• Feature requests
• Songtexte.com