Recorded at Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium just a year before the death of the band’s leader Gary Rossington, Live at the Ryman sees Lynyrd Skynyrd rolling out the hits for a (very) appreciative audience in celebration of the band’s fiftieth year as a recording entity.

At times, they shake the venue to it’s rafters with performances that effortlessly reel in the years back to the days when the band ruled the South’s AM radio airwaves; That Smell, Cry For The Bad Man and Saturday Night Special positively crackle with energy, with the latter even managing to reanimate a little of the latter’s latent menace and desperation. Rossington, Rickey Medlocke and Mark Matejka form a triple axe attack as smooth as that ol’ bourbon the band used to chug so heroically, trading licks, riffs and solos with understated ease, and even Michael Cortellone, not usually one of my favourite drummers, brings his ‘A’ game in harness with the Black Crowes‘ Johnny Colt to keep things bubbling away nicely in the engine room.

Pete Keys is relatively unobtrusive on keys, as, strangely, is Johnny Van Zant, who still seems to live in the shadow of older brother Ronnie in terms of performance. Whether this is done as a mark of respect or for other reasons, you do feel like he might ‘give it some bollocks’ as the blessed Steve Jones used to say. There’s one moment – on a wistful fine, fine version of , when Keys and Van Zant take flight, and it brings a bit of water-inducing dust to the eye, it really does…

Of course, the curtain comes down with a fine, fine version of Freebird – how could it not?- and you’ll feel genuinely emotional when the three axeponents gather centre stage for the guitar extravaganza at songs end, which I for one hoped would never come to a halt…

It did of, course, but you can always press play again, and in the final washup it has to be said that this is as fine an epitaph for Rossington as one could wish for. Vale, brother… rock in perpetuity.

Celebrating 50 Years – Live At The Ryman releases on June 27th.