'As long as they love those songs:' Lynyrd Skynyrd will close the 2023 Strawberry Festival

Sure, Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Rickey Medlocke looks forward to playing “Sweet Home Alabama” and peeking out at the faces of thousands of fans when the band headlines the final night of the Florida Strawberry Festival. But that’s not all he’s hoping to find at the fest.

“All I’m looking for is a baseball-sized strawberry,” Medlocke said.

Lynyrd Skynyrd plays the Plant City festival on March 12, the festival’s final night. The festival books several acts each day, and the lineup is as impressive as it is varied, with shows by the Oak Ridge Boys, Willie Nelson, Ludacris, the Jacksons, Tanya Tucker, Wayne Newton, Train and the Isley Brothers. Each event is separately ticketed.

Lynyrd Skynyrd has deep Florida roots. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band formed in Jacksonville in the mid-1960s and was at the forefront of the Southern rock scene of the ‘70s. A 1977 plane crash, just two days after the band played a concert in Lakeland, killed the band’s original singer, Ronnie Van Zant, along with guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, the band’s assistant road manager and the plane’s pilots. The band re-formed in 1987 with Van Zant’s younger brother, Johnny, taking over the vocal duties.

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They’ve been on the road since, playing hundreds of shows with an ever-shifting lineup. Guitarist Gary Rossington, the band’s last founding member, is no longer touring because of health problems. Rossington can still play – he appeared with the band at a Nashville show last year – but it’s the travel that’s too much for him, Medlocke said.

“We don’t get paid for playing, we get paid for traveling,” Medlocke said. “He can’t go through those rigors in his life. It’s hard on you. He’s with us once in a while and we’re happy when he’s there.”

Medlocke played drums with an early version of the band and went on to form a Southern rock band of his own, Blackfoot. He rejoined Skynyrd in 1996 as one of its three guitar players.

The band announced a farewell tour in 2018 and recorded a September 2018 show at Jacksonville’s TIAA Bank Field for an album and DVD, released as “Lynyrd Skynyrd: Last of the Street Survivors Tour Lyve” the following year. The pandemic postponed the end of that tour, and the band went out on the Big Wheels Keep on Turning Tour for two years. The band is now celebrating the 50^th anniversary of its first album, “Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd" and is setting out on the road with ZZ Top on the Sharp Dressed Simple Man Tour, which has dates booked into September.

Medlocke said he’ll keep playing as long as the fans keep showing up.

“Whether we’re playing the Strawberry Festival or Hellfest over in Europe, it doesn’t matter as long as the fans are happy. As long as they love those songs, we’re going to continue doing it.”

The Strawberry Festival concert will be just the second show of 2023 for Skynyrd. Medlocke said the band has been rehearsing and will switch up a few songs from last year’s tour, but fans can still count on hearing the band’s biggest hits.

“Of course, you’re going to end up closing the night with ‘Alabama’ and ‘Free Bird.’ If something doesn’t feel like it’s quite fitting, you replace a song or two and hone it into what you think is really going to kick some major butt.”

Florida Strawberry Festival headliners

March 2: Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra, free with festival admission

March 2: The Oak Ridge Boys, $30

March 2: Walker Hayes, $40

March 3: Willie Nelson & Family, $50

March 3: Halestorm, $45

March 4: Sara Evans, $40

March 4: Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, $40

March 5: The Gatlin Brothers, $25

March 5: Chris Young, $60

March 6: Neal McCoy, $30

March 6: Josh Turner, $35

March 7: Aaron Tippin, Collin Raye and Sammy Kershaw, $35

March 7: CeCe Winans, $25

March 8: Tanya Tucker, $35

March 8: The Jacksons, $40

March 9: Bill Haley Jr. and the Comets, free with festival admission

March 9: Tommy James & the Shondells, $35

March 9: For King + Country, $40

March 10: Wayne Newton, $40

March 11: Train, $50

March 11: Sawyer Brown, $30

March 11: The Isley Brothers, $40

March 12: Leroy Van Dyke, T.G. Sheppard, Mandy Barnett and T. Graham Brown, $35

March 12: Lynyrd Skynyrd, $60

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Lynyrd Skynyrd to headline the final night of the Strawberry Festival