Rock's Oldest Joke: Yelling 'Freebird!' In a Crowded Theater

Wall Street Journal ^ | today | Jason Fry

[rogue yam]

See Reply #60

[rogue yam]

See reply #59.

[rogue yam]

See Reply #59.

[RichInOC]

"Okay, 'Happy Boy'...coming right up."

[SamAdams76]

I first encountered this phenomenon at my wedding back in 1987. My wife and her mother hired this lame-ass band and they were doing all that "chicken-dance" and "Mexican-hat-dance" crap and as they lunged into another Neil Diamond number my drunk newly-minted brother-in-law shouted "Freebird!" at the top of his lungs and people started clapping and cheering. My new wife was horrified at her brother but I'm sitting there saying to myself "Thank God!"

They never did get around to playing Freebird though.

[KevinB]

Thanks for the reply. I still haven't been able to find the article, but will keep looking. You must really be a fan because you actually know how to spell "Skynyrd." :-)

[rogue yam]

Link to article is at Reply #60.

[SamAdams76]

southern rock had its day and more or less went out with the reminants of segregation and Jim Crow. I live in the South and I love Dixie and I love "Sweet Home Alabama," but would that song go over today like it did then?

I think you are a decade or two off on that one. Sothern Rock had its heyday in the late 1970s and by then, Jim Crow and segregation was a distant memory. Frankly, I've never connected the two. Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, Bad Company, .38 Special, ZZ Top, Charlie Daniels Band, all of those bands bring back a lot of good memories from my youth. Nothing racist about them.

Would Sweet Home Alabama go over as well today? Why not? They still play the heck out of it all over the radio today.

[KevinB]

Oops, should have read the rest of the thread before posting. I did find it. As you said, great article.

[KevinB]

Oops, should have read the rest of the thread before posting. I did find it. As you said, great article.

[Uncle Meat]

Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, Bad Company, .38 Special, ZZ Top, Charlie Daniels Band, all of those bands bring back a lot of good memories from my youth. Nothing racist about them.

Bad Co was British.Black Oak Arkansas,now that was a bad ass southern rock band.So was Doc Holliday and Point Blank.

[Mustng959]

Oh man you opened a pet peeve of mine. I love Styx music "with" Dennis deYoung. Last Styx concert I went to was "Brave New World" tour that Dennis actually played on the tracks. But at the concert, Lawrence Gowen was on keyboards in Dennis's place. I didn't mind Glen Burtnik on bass because he had filled in for Tommy Shaw on the "Edge of the Century" album and Chuck Panozzo had "health" issues at the time. Todd Sucherman on drums replaced the late John Panozzo and does an excellent job.
Lawrence is a fine musician/vocalist and a great keyboard player but to me Styx always represented "the theatrics" of Dennis, the "hard-rock" of JY Young and "the ballads" of Tommy with the Panozzo brothers keeping the beat. There are some good songs on the newest Styx CD, "Cyclorama" but not as many as in the past...its missing Dennis's contributions IMHO.

Oops,sorry for the rant, a peeve you understand.

[Mustng959]

~ Charlie Daniels Band, ~

an' Charlie and the guys are still pickin' and fiddlin' and supporting our troops! Great guy!

[visualops]

Hey, where are you from?

[Mustng959]

Can't forget the impact of your band down in South Carolina ... Marshall Tucker. Hard to believe that both Caldwell brothers are gone.

[visualops]

Here's an anecdote for ya:
Around 1980 I was living in NYC, and hung out at a club a couple blocks from my apartment. I did up their band list graphics layout for the Village Voice and occasionally did the coat-check girl job as a favor. Well, one night the owner asked me to step in as coat-check because there was a record label party. Turned out the party was for some band I'd only vaguely heard of: The Marshall Tucker Band. Nice bunch of guys.

[Doohickey]

Must also be accompanied by holding a lighted Bic over one's head.

I'm guilty of doing this too - maybe a little too often. The really sad part is that fewer and fewer people get it.

[Doohickey]

WSJ online isn't free, so bugmenot doesn't have any logins for it.

[Proud_texan]

"... Play Ball!!!"

And here I thought I was the only person that silently mouthed play ball at the end.

Made my day that I'm not the only one out there....

[LS]

Born in AZ, played there for a while, but "Rampage" was from Pascagoula, Mississippi, and we toured along the Gulf Coast, from LA to FL, then west to CA, CO and so on.