There’s so much to salivate over about Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Live At Knebworth ’76. This historic performance features the legendary triple-guitar line-up of the southern rock band — vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarists Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, and Steve Gaines, bassist Leon Wilkeson, drummer Artimus Pyle, and keyboardist Billy Powell. Skynyrd’s backing singers — Cassie Gaines, JoJo Billingsley, and Leslie Hawkins — collectively known as The Honkettes, were also present when the band played on August 21, 1976 with Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, 10cc, Hot Tuna, and the Rolling Stones.
This is the first time we get to experience this show in its entirety (previous snippets appear in the 1996 film Freebird…The Movie). This is also the infamous performance where Ronnie Van Zant literally and figuratively traipsed across the stage and ignored a warning from the Stones, who headlined the bill that day. An extended part of the stage — shaped like the famous Stones’ tongue logo and mostly covered by red drapes during Lynyrd Skynyrd’s set — was off-limits for anyone but the Stones. Van Zant was told he could go anywhere on stage, but “stay off the tongue.” On the DVD, you can see him ceremonially ignoring this warning when he leads Rossington and Collins out on the tongue during incendiary set-ending “Freebird.”
Before that, we get 10 other classic hard rockin’ honky-tonk gems. This is a truncated version of the show featured on the band’s live album One More For From The Road (recorded a month before Knebworth). The enthusiastic UK crowd eggs the band on to a razor’s edge performance. From swampy, hard-hitting opener “Workin’ For MCA” and the piano-led “Whiskey Rock-A-Roller,” to the nearly-too-hot-to-handle “Gimme Three Steps,” and the chunkin’ J.J. Cale track, “Call Me The Breeze,” this is nonstop southern rocking at its very finest.
As much fun as it is hearting and seeing the band having fun bringing their distinct brand of Americana to the Brits this day, it is equally as cool watching the crowd getting more and more in step with Lynyrd Skynyrd as they basically win everybody over. As to be expected, the one-two punch of “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird” whips the crowd into a frenzy and has the band prowling around one another like the untouchable gang of highly stylized musicians they were. If you pick up the Blu-ray disc of Lynyrd Skynyrd: Live At Knebworth ’76, there’s a special bonus — the documentary If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd. Whichever way you go, there’s no denying Lynyrd Skynyrd was in a class all their own in 1976.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
