You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

Lynyrd Skynyrd have an ongoing knack for not dying, no matter how many of their number actually do die. Based on the evidence here, after 40 years, this is no bad thing.

Theirs is a graceful ageing process, shining through slick, crisp live footage. With Ronnie Van Zandt replaced by brother Johnny, among other newbies, their stock is replenished and the classics preserved as God and the Wild West intended.

Pronounced ‘Leh-’nérd ‘Skin-’nérd comprises the first half, while Second Helping fills the second (ie, the next night). With their biggest hits guaranteed (and they are big) it’s a safe, welcoming set. It’s a softened but stoically capable Skynyrd onstage, grinning through tight renditions of Tuesday’s Gone and the like.

There’s audience fist-bumping, there’s a slightly corny “give a warm welcome to Rock And Roll Hall Fame band, Lynyrd Skynyrd” introduction, there’s regal Southern rock.

Then, midway in this DVD set, it’s there: the close-up of the silver bird, the projected images of candles (with names of deceased Skynyrd-ites), the immortal slide lick… Like the pyramids and Stonehenge, it would take a seismic shift of fearful proportions to bring Free Bird to its knees. And it never stops being great.

No fireworks, no frills – just some nice rugs and a rotating cast of furry critters atop bassist Johnny Colt’s head.

Polly is deputy editor at Classic Rock magazine, where she writes and commissions regular pieces and longer reads (including new band coverage), and has interviewed rock's biggest and newest names. She also contributes to Louder, Prog and Metal Hammer and talks about songs on the 20 Minute Club podcast. Elsewhere she's had work published in The Musician, delicious. magazine and others, and written biographies for various album campaigns. In a previous life as a women's magazine junior she interviewed Tracey Emin and Lily James – and wangled Rival Sons into the arts pages. In her spare time she writes fiction and cooks.