Lynyrd Skynyrd is bringing its farewell tour to Orange Beach, with the Southern rock institution set to headline The Wharf Amphitheater on Saturday, Sept. 28, at 6 p.m. Nashville singer-songwriter Cody Jinks will open the show at the waterfront venue, located at 23325 Wharf Lane. Tickets range from $34 to $341 and are available through Ticketmaster.
The stop is part of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour, a multi-year run billed as the band’s goodbye to large-scale touring after more than five decades on the road. The band’s catalog includes some of classic rock’s most enduring songs, among them “Freebird,” “Gimme Three Steps,” “What’s Your Name,” “That Smell” and, fittingly for an Alabama crowd, “Sweet Home Alabama.”
Guitarist Rickey Medlocke, who has spent 24 years in his current stint with the band after an earlier run as its drummer in the 1970s and a stretch fronting Blackfoot, said the tour has been an emotional victory lap rather than a somber send-off. “It’s not like we’re saying goodbye,” Medlocke said, echoing bandmate Johnny Van Zant’s framing of the tour. “It’s like saying, ‘So long until the next time.'”
The decision to scale back came after guitarist Gary Rossington faced a series of serious health issues over the past decade, making it difficult for him to keep up with the band’s historic touring pace of 80 to 100 shows a year. Medlocke said the band wanted the farewell tour to reach every market it could, not just cities in the United States, given that Lynyrd Skynyrd has played more than 600 venues worldwide over its history. The tour is expected to continue into 2020.
Rossington, Van Zant and Medlocke have also launched a side project called Three Southern Gents, already producing at least one song together, and Medlocke said other band members are pursuing outside projects as the group winds down its full-scale touring schedule. He said he hopes to collaborate musically with his partner, Stacy Michelle, who performs with Kid Rock, once the tour wraps.
Medlocke said the setlists for the farewell tour have evolved show to show, with the band digging into songs it hasn’t performed live in years. He said the Orange Beach set list could look markedly different from other stops on the tour, as Rossington, Van Zant and Medlocke continue tweaking the show night to night.
He described the response from fans, young and old, as overwhelming, with many thanking the band for decades of music as word spreads that the touring chapter is coming to a close. “If you haven’t seen Skynyrd before, then you need to come see us,” Medlocke said. “Just like a lot of the other classic bands, they’re not going to be around here always. Get out and go see it.”
The Wharf Amphitheater, part of The Wharf entertainment and retail complex in Orange Beach, has hosted a steady lineup of national touring acts this year. Doors and gate times are typically posted ahead of showtime at alwharf.com, where fans can also find parking and venue policy details ahead of the Sept. 28 concert.