Save your Confederate money because the South will rise again if the Hank

Williams Jr.-Lynyrd Skynyrd concert at Thompson-Boling Arena Thursday night

is any indication.

Shaver opened the show at 7 p.m. to a decidedly enthusiastic but restless

crowd.

Around 8 p.m., the lights went down and the crowd exploded in rebel yells

as “Bocephus” took the stage and promptly stole the show from Skynyrd.

Hank worked the crowd as only a hard-drinking, hard-loving, rowdy-on-down

country music master could.

The tension in the crowd was palpable as Hank took them from excited highs

to serene calm with songs such as “All My Rowdy Friends” and “Kaliga.”

He showed his deft instrumental abilities with versions of “La Grange,”

“Cat Scratch Fever,” and Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.”

The highlight of Hank’s hour plus set came with “Family Tradition,” in

which the crowd sang most of the song while Hank urged them on.

After he sang each line of the chorus, “Why do you drink, smoke, and live

out the songs you wrote?,” the crowd answered, ” To get drunk, get stoned,

and get laid.”

The self-referential honkytonk hero played many of his own solos and even

played an electric fiddle, which he later threw across the stage in the

best rock’n’roll star tradition.

Near the end, a giant banner unfurled behind the band that showed Hank on

his Harley motorcycle.

He summed up his message to Knoxville with this: “Shake it, shake it, shake

it, shake it, wild thing.”

Skynyrd came out and played their usual strong set, but the crowd had been

emotionally wrung out. Still, the audience bravely mustered the energy to

make Skynyrd feel welcome.