Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 26, 1993 TAG: 9305260265
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"We're going to take you down the swamps, people," said Johnny Van Zant, sounding eerily like his late brother, Ronnie, who fronted the original Lynyrd Skynyrd before he was killed in a plane crash in 1977.
Johnny Van Zant has taken over the lead vocal spot in a reunited Lynyrd Skynyrd.
In introducing the classic Skyn8rd song, "Swamp Music," early on during the band's concert Tuesday at the Roanoke Civic Center, Van Zant could have been saying, "We're going to take you down memory lane."
This reinvented Lynyrd Skynyrd is such a throwback, it's spooky.
Van Zant, although he isn't a carbon copy of his older brother, fills the void close enough to make pretending easy.
He is in a difficult position, but handles it well. His singing was strong Tuesday and he paid tribute without being intrusive.
Van Zant and company wasted little time, opening with vintage Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Workin' For MCA," "Saturday Night Special," "Swamp Music," "What's Your Name," "Tuesday's Gone" and "That Smell" - before introducing any new offerings.
To its credit, the band didn't lose any momentum on the newer material. As a bouncy boogie romp, "Good Lovin's Hard to Find" held its own and "The Last Rebel" maybe didn't pack the same emotional power of "Tuesday's Gone," but it was stirring nonetheless.
The audience of 6,882 responded in kind.
An unfortunate foray into the post-Lynyrd Skynyrd travesty, the Rossington-Collins band, followed, with backup singer Dale Krantz-Rossington (the wife of Skynyrd founding member Gary Rossington) taking center stage and Van Zant taking an exit.
Rossington-Collins was not a high point in the Lynyrd Skynyrd history, and revisiting that dark period's mediocre hit, "Don't Misunderstand Me," was not one of the show's highlights, either.
It was quickly forgotten, however, with the first notes of the show-stopping "Simple Man," arguably Lynyrd Skynyrd's best piece of work - and certainly the band's best ballad.
It's even better than the overrated "Free Bird," if you can classify that as a ballad.
Led by Gary Rossington, Skynyrd's trademark three-guitar attack was as solid as ever.
The three-guitar lineup, and particularly Rossington's lead work, gets much of the focus on stage, but an unsung hero in the group is keyboardist Billy Powell.
His fine playing anchors the band, and Tuesday, it provided an effective counterweight to the guitars. Powell is a big part of what sets Lynyrd Skynyrd apart from similar Southern rock bands that are strictly based around extended guitar heroics.
The band finished its two-hour set with more nostalgia, including "Gimme Three Steps," "Call Me The Breeze" and "Sweet Home Alabama" before ending, of course, with "Free Bird."
Second on Tuesday's bill was another classic rock darling, Bad Company, that did much more than act as a routine warmup.
As it ran through an impressive catalog of its own, the group kept the audience's attention through a long, hour-plus set that didn't have people looking ahead to the headliners.
Clearly, the crowd was into it.
Likewise, Bad Company, particularly lead singer Brian Howe, seemed to be equally enthused.
Howe was in fine form despite having to struggle against sound problems any time the band eased into a quieter segment - which, thankfully, wasn't often.
The band kept its music upbeat and stuck to the power chord classics that popularized the group in the 1970s. The group stuck to the standards: "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy," "Good Lovin' Gone Bad," "Feel Like Makin' Love," "Shooting Star" and "Bad Company."
The audience even cheered the group back onstage for an encore. The band then delivered the appropriately titled "Movin' On."
drivin' n cryin', an Atlanta-based hard-rock quartet, opened the show. The group played its half-hour set straight, sticking to the hard rock basics without going overboard.
Nothing special, but nothing too obnoxious, either.
Its one standout song was "Fly Me Courageous," a moderate hit in 1991, which drew the biggest response from the early crowd.
by CNB