Lynyrd Skynyrd Feels Like Going Home Again
All photos and article by: Belinda Reedy Hinton
Jacksonville, Florida band Lynyrd Skynyrd played to a sold out, standing room only crowd at Ithink Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Florida as part of the “Sharp Dressed Simple Man” Tour.
Sometimes, you just have to step back in time and enjoy the music that shaped your life. Being a hometown Jacksonville girl, I grew up on a steady diet of Southern Rock. When you are born in the same town as one of the most iconic bands in history, it’s inevitable that you become a fan.
I can still remember exactly where I was when the tragic news broke on October 20, 1977, my older sister, bursting into my room to tell me. What can only be described as devastation swept through our town like a wildfire. One radio station played Freebird for twenty four hours straight. That song always took me back to the same spot, the same feelings. In fact, I’m tearing up just writing this, but that was then and this is now.
On July 21, 2023, much of that changed for me. Honestly, it was such a beautiful thing to hear once again many of the songs of my youth and celebrate fifty years of music. When the opening video began, showing a kid flipping through vinyl albums in a record store, the cheering from the crowd was deafening. He then runs home with his newly acquired Lynyrd Skynyrd album, places it on the turntable and rocks out. As if that wasn’t enough for him, he pops in video cassettes in a VCR cuing up the clips of beautiful memories from the humble beginnings to present day. It was delightful to watch. I was enraptured.
Once the music started, there was no question that the current lineup, featuring Rickey Medlocke, who, by the way, played as a studio musician with Lynyrd Skynyrd as early as 1971, and Johnny Van Zant. Johnny has proved time and again that he is the only one who would ever be able to fill the void left behind. He is engaging, and incredible. A force all his own.
The smile on Van Zant’s face can only be described as stunning. His graciousness was only exceeded by his charisma. The entire band just seemed to exude pure joy to be playing. I’m seeing that so much these days. Just a pure love of what these artists have done nearly their entire lives.
There were tender moments as well. D
The dedication of the song “Tuesday’s Gone” to Gary Rossingtonwas particularly bittersweet. The dedication of “Simple Man” to the first responders and the troops, and the encore of Freebird with a poignant look back at fallen members who helped blaze the trail and create Southern Rock. It’s not many bands that can claim the creation of a genre, but this one certainly could.
This entire tour is a celebration, a milestone, and quite possibly the one of the last opportunities to hear these hits live with a legacy band. Don’t pass this up.
Tour dates left this run: There’s also streaming options if you can’t make the shows.
https://www.lynyrdskynyrd.com/#tour
View entire set list here:
Music Injection 
What a band! I know what you mean about ‘Free Bird’ though they were well more than just that song that.
I was lucky enough to see them twice here in Glasgow, at the famous Apollo theatre. (February ’76 and February ’77.)
To this day, EVERY time I play Free Bird, in between the line:
”Cause I’m as free as a bird now’
AND
‘And this bird you cannot change’
I automatically hear Ronnie shout the words ‘How about you, Glasgow?’
Just a simple, simple little thing like that has stuck so vividly all those years in my eighteen year old mind.
🙂
LikeLike