The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“If you haven’t experienced it yourself, you can’t understand it,” said Tom Petty 2017 in his last interview with Rolling Stone About life on tour. ‘And if you are not really experienced, you will fail.’ During his more than four decades long career, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer never shy away from the stage.
But in 2016 even Tom Petty began to see the end of the tunnel. “I would lie if I didn’t say that I thought that this might be the last big concert”, he said to RS. But Petty appeared almost to the end. Be last concert he gave on September 25th in the Hollywood Bowl. Just a week before his death. Here is our summary of some of its best moments on stage.
The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“Listen to Her Heart” (1978)
After the behavioral response to her self -titled debut album, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers started after the release of her second album “You’re gonna get it!” an advertising campaign in 1978. Who decided in many ways about her career. The recordings for the album were anything but ideal.
“It was as if an incredible apathy had grasped the band”, said Petty. But their live appearances were Tight and energetic. “Listen to Her Heart”, the only single release of the album, was regularly played at promo gigs. Including in the Late Night Rock Show “The Old Gray Whistle Test” from the BBC, to which Petty appeared with pilot glasses and a flying VE guitar.
The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“Shadow of a Doubt” (1980)
Damn the Torpedoes changed everything for Petty. Before that, he was bankrupt and in legal disputes with his record label MCA. But the triple platinum album, which was published in 1979, which came second on the charts, produced two hit singles with “Don’t do me like that” and “Refugee”.
Petty also made it a global sensation. The subsequent tour to the album lasted until the following summer. And also included an appearance on the short-lived TV show “Fridays” in Los Angeles. There the band played one of the best songs on the album, “Shadow of a Doubt (a Complex Kid)”. With the exception of the Bridge School Benefit in 1986, Petty no longer played the song for more than two decades in the following years. Until he added to his repertoire in 2002 on his tour for the album “The Last DJ”.
The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“Breakdown” (1985)
In the summer of 1985, when he stepped onto the stage for two concerts in the Wiltern in La, from which the first live album of his band, “Pack up the Plantation: Live!” The original bassist Ron Blair left the group during the strenuous recordings “Southern Accents“From 1985, in the course of which Petty was so frustrated that he was struck against a wall. And his left hand broke out. However, there were no traces of exhaustion during the appearances in the Wiltern. The group played unknown cover versions on the stage. And tore the audience with rousing interpretations of her hits, including her. “Breakdown”, from the seats.
The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“Like a Rolling Stone” with Bob Dylan (1986)
Three weeks after the beginning of their “True Confessions” world tour in 1986, Bob Dylan and Petty hired a professional camera team to film two concerts in the entertainment centre in Sydney, Australia, for an HBO concert special. Dylan played with Petty and the Heartbreakers for the first time at the first Farm Aid in 1985.
But years later he looked back on their tour together with disappointment. “Tom was at the height of his career and I at the low point,” he wrote in 2004 in his memoirs “Chronicles”. Petty saw it differently. In the book “Conversations with Tom Petty” by Paul Zollo published in 2005, he said: “There was no evening when the audience was not incredibly enthusiastic.” On most evenings, the two shared the stage for several songs. These include Dylan’s “Knockin ‘on Heaven’s Door” and a rousing “Like a Rolling Stone”.
“Free Fallin ‘” with Axl Rose (1989)
Thanks to the gigantic success of “Full Moon Fever”, Tom Petty was undoubtedly one of the hottest musicians in the world when he arrived at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1989. This was also true for Guns N ‘Roses, whose album “Appetite for Destruction” had caused a sensation a few years earlier. The surprise was all the greater when Gn’r singer Axl Rose came to Petty and the Heartbreaker on stage at the end of the evening to play “Free Fallin ‘” together. Before Petty and Rose ended the evening with a legendary version of “Heartbreak Hotel”.
“Runnin ‘Down a Dream” (1991)
After creating magic together with “Full Moon Fever”, Petty persuaded the producer of the album, Jeff Lynne, to join the Heartbreakers in the studio. To record “Into the Great Wide Open”. The tour of the same name for the album from 1991 was recorded on the out of print VHS publication “Take the Highway Live”. The setlists of the two concerts in November 1991 in Reno, Nevada, and Oakland, California, contained particularly songs from the current album. But also a decent portion of pieces from “Full Moon Fever”. Including a thrilling version of “Runnin ‘Down a Dream”.
The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“Swingin ‘” (1999)
“Swingin ‘” was released in 1999 on the album’ Echo ‘. A depressed album that has followed the failure of Petty’s marriage and one of his greatest commercial flops. The third single, in which Petty compares a relationship with a boxing match, remains one of the singer’s strongest songs. “Swingin ‘” could be heard on the’ Echo ‘tour almost every evening. But Petty only played it again at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival last April.
The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“Learning to fly” with Stevie Nicks (2006)
For their first concert in her hometown for 13 years and to celebrate her 30th anniversary, Petty and the Heartbreaker took a film team to Gainesville to capture the exuberant mood for the documentary “Live From Gatorville”. The evening’s setlist included her entire career. And also contained a cover version of “I’m a man” by the Yardbirds. But it was a guest appearance by Stevie Nicks who made headlines. Petty introduced her as the “the little sister of the band”. And brought the singer of Fleetwood Mac on stage for several songs. These include a cover version of the early Mac classic “Oh Well”, the legendary duet “Stop Draggin ‘My Heart Around” and “Learning to Fly”.
The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“Tweeter and the Monkey Man” (2013)
Instead of playing his hits like most musicians of his age, Petty made it their task in 2013 to give a number of eleven concerts in the New York Beacon Theater and in the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles, where he focused on rarities. He played “Rebels”, “Wildflowers” and “A Woman in Love (it’s not me)”. But one of the biggest surprises was “Tweeter and the Monkey Man”, a song by the Traveling Wilburys, which he wrote together with Bob Dylan.
“Nobody has done that yet. So I just thought: ‘That would be interesting to try it,’ ‘said Petty shortly after the concerts. He remembered that his Wilburys band colleagues George Harrison and Jeff Lynne originally thought the song had originally considered “too American”, so that he and Dylan “just sat there for most of the afternoon. And revised him the next day”.
The 15 best live appearances of the Tom Petty
“American Girl” (2017)
In a sad, happy coincidence, Petty and the Heartbreakers announced their tour for the 40th anniversary last summer as their last big tour. They definitely used this opportunity. The band was in top shape and played a monumental set that typically began with “Rockin ‘Around (with you)”, the first song of her debut album. And always ended with an encore of “American Girl”.
The last appearance ended with an extensive instrumental coda and a bow. Even until the end, Petty was a perfect showman. “If I were a fan and you would not play ‘American Girl’ or ‘Free Fallin’, I would be disappointed.”