The only disappointing thing about that night is the fact that Johnny Van Zant said they'd add Fort Smith to the regular tour schedule... but they never came back... so I went to them!
Many of us still remember the night of June 24th, 1999. It was the summer before my Senior year in High School. It was humid, it poured down rain all day, and Pat Travers didn't get to fly into the Fort to open for Skynyrd that night. Although, that little piece of news wasn't enough to keep us all from playing outside.
And while I didn't realize it at the time, two years after this night I would be in Navy boot camp and I would see Skynyrd twice during my Sailor days.
But let's rewind about six years and go back to the summer of 1993. I was almost a 12 year-old kid and I remember saving up Christmas money from the year before, maybe even a little birthday money, and then saving some dough I had made in the neighborhood, going around mowing lawns. My dad took us all to Best Buy, which was still pretty new back then and seemed like a wonderland of electronics and music. It was unlike anything I had ever seen.
So we took a look around for a while and I finally found what I wanted. It was a brand new Sony shelf system with the detachable speakers mounted on the side. It had a dual tape deck, a CD player on top, and an equalizer on the front panel. Almost cooler than a G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu grip.
We flipped on the radio and listened to KISR for a second, back when they played music that was good, and I swear I could feel every bone rattling in my body. The sound on this machine was phenomenal, so I knew I wanted to take it home.
And I did.
After we got home, my dad did something he never did before, and something he'd never do again. He walked into my bedroom and said, "Show me how to work this thing. I have something you need to listen to and it'll change your life forever." So I moved over, watched my dad put a tape into one of the tape players, and I started listening to something I'd never heard before.
It was 17 minutes of Freebird from Lynyrd Skynyrd's "One More From the Road" live album at the Fox Theater in Atlanta from 1976. To this day, it's still the greatest live-music masterpiece ever produced. Hands down.
As the years passed, I ended up learning how to play a guitar, and a lot of the music I played was from the Skynyrd album. I'd put on my headphones, tune my guitar to the album, and start playing. I was hooked on it and I must've worn out 15 pair of headphones listening to that album.
Now, let's go back to the future. 1999.
My dad was reading the Times Record one day, June 10th to be exact, and he handed me the "Spotlight" section. In there, I found an article written by Scott Smith, a Times Record writer. I don't know where Scott is today, or what he's doing, but I want him to know I still have his article glued to a piece of cardboard and it's something I'll keep for the rest of my life.
The article read "LYNYRD SKYNYRD TO ROCK FS ON JUNE 24th"
And that's where my journey began.
My twin brother, who had not yet lost his mind at that time, asked me if I was going to the concert. Of course, the answer was yes, so we devised a plan. We rounded up a few buddies, went and bought 8 tickets, and patiently waited for June 24th to come along.
On June 24th, we didn't really know what to expect. I don't think we slept the night before. We got around that day and wasted no time getting to Kay Rodgers Park for the show. The only problem is that we got there at 2:00 p.m. and the doors didn't open until 6:00 p.m.
Did I mention it was still pouring down rain and the line for the concert was OUTSIDE?
Soaking wet, we still had a blast. My brother, myself, and six of our friends stood there in that line and we just waited.... Until a man walked outside, noticed a group of boys who needed to get dry, and asked us if we wanted to come into the arena. At that point, we did not hesitate.
So we get inside the thing, start to dry off, and this guy looks at us and says "You boys wouldn't happen to want to work tonight, would you?"
I politely let him know (in no certain words) that my undies and my socks were soaked and I didn't feel like working anything but a campfire or a clothes dryer. The man laughed and said he had a better deal for us, so we listened.
He then introduced himself as Rick Caldwell and said he was Skynyrd's tour manager for the "Edge of Forever" concert series. I think that was when we really started to listen, so the man went on to explain.
"We have 8 gates and there are 8 of you guys. I need a body at every gate with one of these clickers. You click for every ticket you see torn. After the gates close, we'll move everyone back, slide you guys into the front row, and you'll get to enjoy the concert from the same position you showed up first to get."
I was intrigued, but I wanted to know more, so I asked the man what was in it for us if we helped him out. And that's where things got interesting.
He said, "I'll pay you $20 each, I'll give you all a free t-shirt, and you can come back to the hotel with us after the concert is over and hang out with the guys until they all check out and get on the bus."
We almost had a deal, until my brother remembered he had a rebel flag bandana in his back pocket and I had a wall-size rebel flag in my back pocket. Our plan was to hold that sucker up during Sweet Home Alabama.
My brother, all 320 lbs of him, takes the flag and the bandana, hands it to the guy, and says "Get these autographed by every member of the band and you've got yourself a deal. So the guy took the items from us, handed us some clickers, pointed us to the gates, and then disappeared.
We fulfilled our duties that night. We stood, we clicked, we turned the clickers in, we got moved to the front, and we enjoyed what would be the first of six Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts I would attend in my lifetime.
Now, let's get to the good stuff...
After the concert, Mr. Caldwell came and found us. He gave us all $20, he gave us t-shirts, and he told us the band was staying at the then-Holiday Inn in downtown Fort Smith. My brother seemed to be missing something, though.
He asked the man where the bandana and rebel flag were. On the positive side, he had them in a bag and gave them back to us. The downside is that they were only autographed by a few of the guys in the band. And we wanted more.
As we headed off to the hotel, all we could do was scream at each other because we'd never been around speakers as loud as those inside the concert. Amidst the screaming, we devised a plan to finish getting the rest of the autographs we were missing.
When we got inside, the man had us wait downstairs by a big piano. The first thought in my mind was "I wonder if we can get Billy Powell to play the Freebird intro when he comes down?"
Ironically, BP was the first member of the band to come down the elevator.
When he came down to our level, he immediately greeted us, as did the rest of the band when they all made it downstairs. But a good focus was on Billy Powell. He had been the most vocal of all the band members about the events of the plane crash on October 20th, 1977, so we knew we wanted to talk to him and see what all he would tell us.
And you have to remember, these guys were like superheroes to me at that point. They still are, but that's beside the point.
Now, I could tell about nine pages of story, and we could turn this into a 15-part ordeal, but the long and short of it is that I ended up getting all their autographs on the flag, I still have the flag to this day, I ended up getting pictures with all the guys in the band, I got a kiss on the cheek from the Honkettes, and we sat on the tailgate of a truck with Billy Powell that night as he told us the plane crash story.
To a 17 year-old kid, it was a dream come true, still one of the greatest nights in my life, and I'll never forget how it all played out. I have the pictures, I have the autographs, and I have the memories for as long as my mind will be allowed to keep them.
That's my piece of Arklahoma history from June 24th,1999. Now I have to decide whether to tell the story of the time I met Gregg Allman at the A&W shop at Norfolk International Airport, or the time I partied with the two oldest Hanson brothers in Tulsa. STAY TUNED!
