Artimus Pyle played drums for Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1974 to 1977 (and again from 1987 to 1991), appearing on Nuthin’ Fancy, Gimme Back My Bullets, and Street Survivors, before the October 1977 plane crash near Gillsburg, Mississippi changed everything. He survived as the sole remaining member of the classic lineup, and when he finally got back on a stage it was to play the only music that made sense: Ronnie Van Zant’s. The Artimus Pyle Band, which Pyle established in 1981, brings “Honoring Ronnie Van Zant’s Lynyrd Skynyrd” to Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m.
About the Show
The current APB lineup is a seven-piece. Pyle anchors it on drums; Thane Shearon handles lead vocals; Barry Lee Harwood, formerly of the Rossington Collins Band, plays guitar alongside Scott Raines and Jerry Lyda; Johnny Jump holds down bass; and Joe “Boogie” Simpson rounds out the sound on keyboards. The set draws from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s catalog, and the bill’s framing is deliberate: this is described not as a tribute act but as “a tribute to the man that defined it,” meaning Van Zant, and there is nothing performative about that when the drummer on stage is the one who survived the wreckage.
Pyle, a 2006 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee as a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, has been candid about what performing this material costs him. “Playing the music, I get emotional sometimes in the middle of a set doing a certain song,” he has said. “Tears will come to my eyes.” His accounting of his own place in the story is equally direct: “If it wasn’t for Ronnie, no one would know my name.” His most recent album, Anthems — Honoring The Music of Lynyrd Skynyrd, released Feb. 2, 2024, brought the Skynyrd catalog into duet territory with guests including Dolly Parton, Sammy Hagar, Warren Haynes, Ronnie Dunn, Lee Brice, and Billy Ray Cyrus. The band made its Grand Ole Opry debut in October 2023, and Pyle’s documentary Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash is available on Amazon Prime Video.
Venue & Logistics
Universal Preservation Hall at 25 Washington Street holds 1,100 seats in a theater configuration — a scale that suits a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame act playing a catalog this emotionally loaded. It sits in Saratoga Springs, among the better rooms for live music in the Capital Region. The show is Thursday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Buy tickets