Lynyrd Skynyrd Announces Final Show
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” will make its final landing. The legendary Southern rock group, known for the bandmates’ personal tragedies as much as their music, has announced the final show in their Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s final show ever will take place Sept. 2 date at EverBank Field in Jacksonville, Fla., the city where the band was formed more than 50 years ago and the current home field of the Jacksonville Jaguars, according to Rolling Stone.
Lynyrd Skynyrd will be joined by opening acts Kid Rock and Jason Aldean for the finale show of the Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour, which also marks the first concert at the Florida stadium since 2015. Lead singer Johnny Van Zant said the special final show is “a dream come true for the Lynyrd Skynyrd band.” According to News 4 Jax, the longtime Lynyrd Skynyrd singer said:
“We’re going to rock the house here. My brother and Gary [Rossington] and Allen Collins started this band a long time ago. We are on our farewell tour. It’s time to wrap it up. To be able to play Jacksonville, here, with the Jags, come on. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
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Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour kicks off May 4 at the Coral Sky Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, Fla. In addition to Kid Rock and Jason Aldean’s finale show opener, special guests Hank Williams, Jr., Charlie Daniels Band, Bad Company, Molly Hatchet, Marshall Tucker Band, 38 Special, Blackfoot, and more big names are set to pop up throughout Lynyrd Skynyrd tour.
While the Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour was originally slated to end Sept. 1 in Atlanta, Georgia, Lynyrd Skynyrd added the final Florida show as a thank you to their hometown fans that stood by them since the band’s humble beginnings.
Lynyrd Skynyrd formed with the name My Backyard in Jacksonville in 1964 and released their self-titled debut album as Lynyrd Skynyrd nearly a decade later. The 1973 album included the songs “Simple Man,” “Gimme Three Steps,” and the band’s signature song, “Free Bird” and earned the band major radio success.
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But just four years later, on Oct. 20, 1977, tragedy struck Lynyrd Skynyrd just days after the release of their fifth studio album, Street Survivors. A Mississippi plane crash took the lives of Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and two airplane crewmen.
After the fatal crash, the surviving Lynyrd Skynyrd bandmates made the decision to disband, but 10 years later, Ronnie Van Zant’s little brother, Johnny, stepped in as lead singer for a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute tour. Today, guitarist Gary Rossington is the only Lynyrd Skynyrd co-founder still playing with the band.
Tickets for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s final show go on sale to the public on April 30 at 10 AM.
You can see Lynyrd Skynyrd performing their signature song “Freebird” a few months before the deaths of Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines in the video below.
