I think your mind has a way of just kind of making it fuzzy. And after that you kind of go blank, you know, when bad things happen. “I looked up at the TV and it was on and I hollered for my dad. Van Zant, who was 17 at the time, said he answered the phone at his family’s home and was the first to learn of the crash from the band’s former manager. You better be in school.’ So, it was just very dramatic.” “ very traumatic for our whole family … and actually I was gonna go down and I could have been on that plane myself, but I was in high school and everybody said, ‘Hey, if you skip school, Ronnie’s gonna beat your butt when he sees you. Six people died in the crash, including Ronnie, guitarist Steve Gaines and backup singer Cassie Gaines. Van Zant and the band were faced with enormous tragedy in 1977, when a plane carrying his older brother, Ronnie Van Zant, the lead singer of the group at the time, crashed in Mississippi after running out of fuel. We're probably just all going to sit around and cry for a bit, get emotional.Guitarist Gary Rossington, founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, performs onstage during Day 2 of the Stagecoach Music Festival on Apin Indio, California. "I think it's going to be really hard to get people out of here at the end of the night," Melody said. "I wasn't sad at all until I started reading all these posts on Facebook." "I think at the Galactic show it's going to be sad," Judy said. There was no place in-between."Īnd though it's time for Freebird to end, she said she is starting to get a little melancholy about it all as fans, and bands, pop up to say how much they'll miss the place. Now there's a lot of places you can go see good live music, but back then? There was no place else for them to play - it was either Jack Rabbits or the Florida Theatre. I think we did a wonderful thing for Jacksonville. "That is really a little tedious sometimes," Judy said. And dealing with people who drink alcohol? Running a club is tough, long work, the Van Zants say. Melody, who took over chief responsibility at Freebird, wants to do event coordinating for nonprofits, while continuing to work with her mother on the Suwannee festivals. She also partners on a couple of events in New Orleans, where she has a recording studio called the Parlor. She now runs two music festivals at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park near Live Oak, Magnolia Fest and Suwannee Springfest. She stepped away from Freebird seven years ago. It's endless the people that have gone on here." Mofro played here on New Year's Eve until about seven years ago. Yonder Mountain was a regular pretty much every year. All the jam bands, going back to Deep Banana Blackout, bands you don't hear any more. We've had all the Marleys here, except of course Bob. Good Charlotte played here before they got big. "Charlie Daniels did the grand opening here. "Donna the Buffalo, Delbert McClinton," she said, opening up a thick binder full of publicity pictures of some of the bands. Levon Helm played here, Buddy Miles, Mick Taylor played here. Judy Van Zant thinks back on some of those who've played at Freebird Live. And the place became an institution, drawing an impressive list of stars. They changed the name to Freebird Live and, over the course of a few hectic days, renovated the heck out of the place - enlarging the stage, moving a bar, tearing out much of the first-floor ceiling so you could stand upstairs and look down on the bands. They told how within a few years of opening, Freebird's emphasis moved away from food and Skynyrd gear, and more toward live music played by national and international stars. Last week she and her daughter talked about the last 16 years at Freebird, which filled a niche in Jacksonville and brought in many bands that likely would not have found a place to play, back in the old days. They're done, and they're happy to move on. The Van Zants won't have anything to do with it. The iconic club will be renovated and reopen as Surfer the Bar, affiliated with Surfer magazine. That's when the club hosts its last show - with Galactic, a regular band there for more than a dozen years - brings the music to an end. This is one of the stops they make."Īfter Wednesday, though, it'll be gone. I've never had a band I liked that much, that I'd do that for. "There definitely are some people, they plan their whole vacation around coming to Jacksonville to see the Skynyrd sites," Melody said. Freebird still gets those visitors: People haven't forgotten the Jacksonville band and its swaggering lead singer, the late Ronnie Van Zant, who was husband to Judy, father of Melody.įreebird through the years: A collection of concerts, people and memories It drew Skynyrd fans from around the world, especially from Europe and Japan. In 1999, Judy Van Zant and her daughter Melody opened up a restaurant in Jacksonville Beach as a tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd: Think Hard Rock Cafe, except with Skynyrd memorabilia.
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