I always feel like Lynyrd Skynyrd don’t actually get enough credit for their classic southern rock. Yes, sir: I feel Lynyrd Skynyrd are underrated. Sure, “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Freebird,” tired as we are of them, rule, but how about the fact that this band had a spree of albums in the ’70s on par with Thin Lizzy and Led Zeppelin? It’s true, and it’s just not acknowledged enough when talking rock history, if you ask me.
I’m not alone in this line of thought, apparently: the band’s recent show at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria was packed with an energetic audience who belted along to lesser-remembered songs like “Simple Man” with a passion that caught me off guard in the best of ways.
The band ripped through their set as if anything past the late ’70s never happened, and it was a wise approach: every song was a hit, but fuelled by amazing playing and an enthusiastic performance, not by nostalgia. I went into the show with a bit of trepidation: this band has been through a lot of members and a lot of years have passed since their last great album, but they delivered with the passion of a bunch of young southern rockers.
Openers Whiskey Myers are a bunch of young southern rockers, and they warmed up the crowd perfectly: not only did they get a particularly enthusiastic response for an opening act, but they managed to get the time machine started nice and early. Their southern rock was straight outta decades past, and the sincerity was charming. They rocked hard, highlight being the, uh, percussionist who sat on an amp and rocked hard while hitting tambourines and whatnot through the set. You get the feeling he’s just along for the ride, feeling the tunes in a big way; we all were that night, which may have been this past weekend, but feels like it was 40 years ago, in all the right ways.