BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Six songs and 17 minutes into Lynyrd Skynyrd's set headlining Musikfest's main Steel Stage on Wednesday, singer Johnny Van Zant addressed the audience.
"People call us a tribute band," Van Zant said. "We're a legacy band. ... We're carrying on the legacy of my brother Ronnie" and other band members who have passed.
It was a startling admission that the band on stage, despite its name, was not Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose last founding member, guitarist Gary Rossington, died last year.
That made enjoying the band — or evaluating its performance — easier without the pretention that what you were watching had to live up to the original band.
And the show very much was a tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd, as Van Zant — who has been in the band since 1987 — went over the top referencing the original members.
[Guitarist Rickey Medlocke, who has been in the band since 1971 and is the only member who played with the original lineup, was largely relegated to the background.]
In an hour-and 22-minute set, Lynyrd Skynyrd played 13 songs — all the hits, but also deeper tunes — spanning the band's career.
Most of the songs were broader interpretations, largely missing the intricacies of the original versions and, perhaps, much of the passion.
But for a largely older crowd looking like more than 5,000, seeking to reconnect with memories, it seemed to serve the purpose just fine.
Or, as Van Zant said in the night's second song, 2010's "Skynyrd Nation, "We're feeling right/Gonna take all night/To rock this joint the way it's supposed to be/Young and old/Three generations bold/We've been told it's a Skynyrd Nation."
Filled the Southern rocker role
That song was the only one played Wednesday that was released after 1977, when Ronnie Van Zant was killed in a plane crash.
The set, with seven players and two female backup singers on stage, opened with "Workin' for MCA," a deep cut from the band's 1974 second album, "Second Helping."
That song, like many in the set, was jammy and fun — a vibe that continued through the third song, the 1977 hit "What's Your Name," on which Van Zant implored the crowd, "Y'all help us sing it!"
That sort of captured the feel of the show — Van Zant playing on history and presenting the night as a kind of oldies show. There certainly was no menacing-Southern-rocker feel to the night.
There was the breezy deep cut "Call Me the Breeze" and a fun, if far diminished, version of the hit "Gimme Three Steps."
Perhaps the deepest reference was when Van Zant introduced the 1977 hit "That Smell" — an ominous warning against drug addiction — by saying, "We've been there, done that. We ain't never going back again!"
And the 1973 song "Tuesday's Gone" was dedicated to "the late, great" Rossington — with images and videos of him on the big screen behind the band as it played.
"Do you guys still believe in our country? November's coming up — vote, vote, vote."Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Johnny Van Zant
But far more of the show was simply a celebration, such as the fun boogie-woogie of the 1977 B-side "I Know a Little," during which Van Zant told the crowd, "Thank you so much for keeping Skynyrd's music alive!"
They filled the Southern rocker role by playing the deep-cut "The Ballad of Curtis Loew" with an American flag draped on the microphone.
And before the 1973 hit "Simple Man," Van Zant asked the crowd, "Do you guys still believe in our country? November's coming up — vote, vote, vote."
He dedicated that song to "our military troops, first responders" and even doctors and nurses, "may God bless each and every one of them."
But it probably was the song that most fell short of the original. Van Zant's voice is certainly not that of his brother's.
The big hits, and the rain
Lynyrd Skynyrd closed the main set with a seven-minute, overly obvious version of its second-biggest hit, the 1974 gold song "Sweet Home Alabama." But it's such a good song, you couldn't help but enjoy it.
Before the encore, the crowd, too, got into the overly obvious mode — turning the cliche appropriate by hollering for the song "Freebird."
And, of course, Lynyrd Skynyrd played it — a 12-minute version that was a fine approximation, but without the depth, urgency or meaning a song of that stature once had.
Of course, as Van Zant told the crowd, this was a simply carrying on a legacy.
A word about the weather: A night after thunderstorms shut down country band Old Dominion's headline show at Musikfest after just 30 minutes, Wednesday started with a steady rain through the night's two opening acts.
Singer Christine Havrilla's style was sort of like Melissa Etheridge on a four-song, 19-minute set.
Six Gun Sally from Pittsburgh was a cover band — the kind you see in a better bar or perhaps a casino, playing styles ranging as widely as The Allman Brothers' "Ramblin' Man" and "Whipping Post" to Eddie Rabbit's "Driving My Life Away" in its 10-song, 42-minute set.
Having them as a supporting act seemed questionable for a headline band wanting to avoid being labeled a tribute band.
But by Skynyrd's third song, the rain had stopped.
"I thought we'd be playing in front of 10 people," Van Zant told the crowd early in the set. "Look at your asses — you look great tonight!"
