Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Quebec City Summer Festival

This is the last opportunity to attend a concert of a band that has more than 28 million albums sold worldwide while Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Quebec City Summer Festival on July 6, 2019 represents the last chance you will have to see this southern rock band on stage in La Belle Province.

At the same time, it’s your last chance to hear one of the most recognized songs in the history of music. Indeed, Sweet Home Alabama has stood the test of time despite the fact that the group at its origin did not have a very popular, focusing mainly on Southern-rock sound that almost entirely appeals to inhabitants of the southern part of the United States.

The song is in fact a direct response to two songs from legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, Southern Man and Alabama, which denounce the racist policies related to the period of slavery and the emancipation of “African-Americans”, a subject still very controversial at the time the 3 songs were written. The Canadian artist, known for his liberal, anti-segregationist positions, is clearly quoted in the lyrics of the song while its author, the singer of the band Ronnie Van Zant, mentions: “Well, I heard Mr. Young sing about her “, ” Well, I heard Neil put her down. “, “Well, I hope Neil Young will remember: A southern man don’t need him around anyhow“.

In his Autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, Young candidly admits that the lyrics of his song Alabama deserved the criticism of the late singer Lynyrd Skynyrd because of the condescending tone, lack of judgment and inaccuracy of the song in general.

It’s a pity that Van Zant could not hear these “excuses”, since he died in the famous plane crash that decimated the group in 1977, three days after the launch of their fifth album, ironically entitled Street Survivor. The accident also took the lives of Steve and Cassie Gaines, brothers and sisters and respectively the group’s lead guitarist and backing vocalists. The other members of the group fared miraculously with serious injuries, but that did not put their lives in danger.

It took more than a decade for the group to reform with several original members such as Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson and Artimus Pyle to which will be added the guitarist Ed King and Van Zant’s younger brother Johnny for the current tour.

In all, it’s 14 studio albums that the group has given us between 1973 and 2012, the most recent titled Last of a Dyin’ Breed, whic represents well and truly what the group has gone through in the course of the last decades.