Review: Lynyrd Skynyrd

OVO Arena, Wembley ( July 19^th, 2025)

Reviewer- Mark Jackson

My introduction to Skynyrd was in 1982. At the age of15 at a Rock Disco, while headbanging furiously, ‘Freebird‘ came on. I was blown away by the guitars, got my first Skynyrd album, and never looked back. They’ve been a big chunk of my life soundtrack ever since!

Lynyrd Skynyrd 2025.

After the sad loss of founding guitarist Gary Rossington in 2023, Lynyrd Skynyrd have big cowboy boots to fill. So on a slightly thundery day they hit Wembley….Hard! This is my 7th time seein’ Skynyrd, pretty much every tour since 1991, and this version with it’s mainstays of Rickey Medlocke and Johnny Van Zant take the challenge head on, proving in this case age don’t matter shit!

Rickey at 75 has more playin’ ability and energy than dudes half his age, and Johnny has matured into a kind of ‘Uncle Buck’ frontman, full of heart and downhome rhetoric, and then there’s the songs, bruiser after bruiser, ‘Workin For MCA‘, ‘That Smell‘, ‘Saturday Night Special‘,  ‘Down South Jukin’‘, and many others.

Then we have the heartrending, soul searing epics like ‘Simple Man‘, ‘Tuesday’s Gone‘ and the immortal ‘Freebird‘, all delivered in Pro style by Michael Cartellone on drums, Mark Matejeka country shredding guitar like I’ve never seen him do before, Damon Johnson takin’ over Gary‘s guitar parts, which you can Never! duplicate, so he pays homage, but plays them with his own style. Peter Keys (on keys naturally), the fabulous Honkettes and a bassist I’ve never seen before..my ‘ol drinkin’ buddy Keith from the Georgia Satellites must have left or been fired!

For those that say it’s just a tribute band, who cares. It’s about the songs and the music. They know that and play for the audience, ‘cos those songs are frickin’ huge on a big stage, frickin’ huge! Blackberry Smoke (a good band who I like) found that out, you can’t beat Skynyrd in the Live arena, they’re just too good…they did OK tho!

As for the venue..it sucks. I’ve been there twice, never again, unhappy Gulag style staff, watered down Coors as the only beer, extortionate prices for everything and all poor quality, no smoking area (it’s a Rock gig!). So I’ll go to another show if they come back! They could learn lessons from the Ricoh in Coventry where I saw Bruce Springsteen, great folks helpful in every way and all needs catered for with reasonable pricing.

But it was great to see Medlocke, the Stagemaster, whipping it up and Johnny this ones for yore Mama’s’ talkin’ to the crowd like long lost pals.

Heart, Soul, Dedication to their musical craftmanship and a smokin’ setlist. If they tour again, I will be there, but not at OVO Sucksville ha ha.

Setlist:

1. Workin’ for MCA
2. What’s Your Name
3. That Smell
4. I Know a Little
5. Saturday Night Special
6. Down South Jukin’
7. Gimme Back My Bullets
8. Cry for the Bad Man
9. The Needle and the Spoon
10. Tuesday’s Gone
11. Simple Man
12. Gimme Three Steps
13. Call Me the Breeze (J.J. Cale cover) (with Charlie Starr)
14. Sweet Home Alabama
15. Encore:
16. Free Bird

Web Links:

Official Website

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