MANSFIELD - Considering Kid Rock namechecked Lynyrd Skynyrd in no less than three songs last night at the Comcast Center, it is fitting that the Detroit rocker is touring with his heroes on their “Rock & Rebels’’ tour.
During their sets both pledged allegiance to the flag and American soldiers, endorsed beer and whiskey, and embraced power chords, boogie, and volume as a means to an end. The near-capacity crowd ate up what felt like a long-delayed taste of summer.
Kid Rock’s kinetic closing set was a funny blend of crude and rowdy bravado and tent-revival exuberance.
How do you resist video homages to Jim Rice at the end of “American Badass’’ or US troops during a heartfelt “Only God Knows Why’’? Or a segue from his own paean to tolerance, “Amen,’’ into Sly Stone’s classic “Everyday People’’? Or Peter Wolf zipping out to perform an ecstatic “Centerfold’’? Or Kid Rock’s goofy Skynyrd-Zevon mash-up “All Summer Long’’? Or the way he gives props to his Twisted Brown Trucker Band?
The short answer is you don’t if you want to have fun. Brain off, hips on.
By contrast, and perhaps unavoidably given its history, Lynyrd Skynyrd was enthusiastic but a bit more careworn.
One of the most robust songs in the seminal Southern rockers’ set was “Still Unbroken,’’ a muscular track from their forthcoming album “God and Guns.’’
The “In Loving Memory’’ video montage of Skynyrd members who have passed away served to underscore the slim tether between the original band and its current iteration. (Guitarist Gary Rossington is that tether.) But, given how well-oiled the band is, that was of little consequence to the boisterous crowd ready to cheer “Sweet Home Alabama,’’ boogie to “Gimme Three Steps,’’ and hoist lighters during the encore of, naturally, “Free Bird.’’
Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com