Tom Petty To Do Beatles & George Harrison Songs At Anniversary Concert
(11/25/02, 6 p.m. ET) -- Tom Petty is getting ready to honor his friend, the late George Harrison. Petty and the Heartbreakers are on the bill for Friday's (November 29) George Harrison tribute concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which marks the first anniversary of the singer-guitarist's death. The group will play three songs written by Harrison--the Beatles' "I Need You" and "Taxman," and the solo "Isn't It A Pity," from 1970's All Things Must Pass.

Also set to perform at the show are Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Jools Holland, Joe Brown, Ravi Shankar, and members of Monty Python's Flying Circus. At press time, it was still unclear whether or not Bob Dylan would be on the bill.

Proceeds from the event will go to the Material World Charitable Foundation, a personal favorite of Harrison's since its inception in 1973. The group supports the arts, music, education, and people with special needs.

Petty and company are on a break from their tour in support of The Last DJ. After the Harrison show, they return to the road on December 3 at the First Union Spectrum in Philadelphia. The tour, with special guest Jackson Browne, wraps up December 14 at the FleetCenter in Boston.

-- Bruce Simon, New York

Dreamville Live
Last month Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers performed the entire new album in LA. The concert was seen in movie theatres across the United States. This performance will air on Pay Per View stations on December 7th, 9:00 p.m. ET and 11:00 p.m ET. Check local listings for details.

I believe Tom said in the chat the other night that it will also be released on DVD soon.

Petty fine-tunes industry message
By MICHAEL D. CLARK

It's taken Petty a few years to strap on his gloves. He spent the latter-half of the '90s regrouping the Heartbreakers and working through a divorce. Friday night at the Compaq Center, however, he came freshly shaved, nattily dressed and ready to take on the music industry.

Tom Petty still rock-solid
By Dave Ferman
Star-Telegram Pop Music Critic

DALLAS - Tom Petty defies all pop-music logic.

He's in his 50s, he's not particularly handsome, his music is solid, old-school rock 'n' roll with few frills, his stage show includes no technical wizardry, and he's never grabbed headlines with any scandals or drug busts.

By all rights, Petty should not still be able to draw thousands of people, as he and his Heartbreakers did Saturday night at the Americans Airlines Center.

But it is Petty's attention to craft and the direct unpretentious nature of his performance that continues to make him so appealing.

His show last night was yet another of his area appearances -- he's played Dallas at least 10 times in the past 20 years -- that merged a low-key soulfulness with good old-fashioned rock-'n'-roll punch.

And this time around Petty has the added advantage of touring behind a CD that is strong even by his already high standards.

The Last DJ is one part romantic ballads and two parts angry, intelligent broadsides at a music industry that Petty sees as increasingly shortsighted and lacking soul. And it was this mix of classic and new material that made the show even better than most of his area performances.

Wearing a crushed-velvet jacket, jeans and boots, Petty kicked off the show with the new CD's title track, a tribute to the increasingly few DJs who still play the music they want to.

From there he alternated new material with old favorites such as Love Is A Long Road and Free Fallin'.

The new material, especially Joe, and the evenings's third song, Have Love Will Travel, would have been right at home on any of Petty's classic records from the late 1970s and early '80s.

The difference is that Petty now has years of sometimes rocky experience in the music business to fully inform his sour opinion of the industry. Joe, for example, was biting in its portrayal of a heartless record company executive.

The new songs were well received, but it was the concert's home stretch, with such hits as I Won't Back Down and The Waiting, that gave the show its momentum and lift.

In his low-key way, Petty remains an American rocker worth listening to, and not just as an oldies act.

Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne opened the evening with a 63-minute set that, while well performed, featured a few too many new and not-so-memorable songs.

One can appreciate that Browne doesn't want to rely just on old favorites, but he played at least two new songs too many. The Naked Ride Home and The Night Inside Me were fine, but Never Stop and Culver Moon were both nondescript and derailed his show's momentum.

Substituting one of his better old songs for either of those tunes would have been a much better idea.

However, he did finish his set with strong, well-sung versions of The Pretender and Running on Empty.

Petty proves there's still hope for rock
Heather Lalley
Staff writer

Near the end of his passionate, freewheeling show Thursday at the Spokane Arena, Tom Petty articulated a sentiment he had already made plain for much of his two-hours-plus set:

"We want to disprove the rumor that rock 'n' roll is dead," he told a packed, screaming Arena crowd. "Rock 'n' roll is very much alive. I can feel its heart beating in Spokane tonight."

That statement is more than a rock 'n' roll nicety coming from Petty, who just released "The Last DJ." The album is a scathing indictment of a bottom-line-driven music industry that, as Petty sings in the title track, celebrates mediocrity.

Yet there's hope for rock -- as long as Petty and his expert band, The Heartbreakers, keep making music.

Forget those music mags frothing over the latest young messiahs come to save rock 'n' roll. Petty & The Heartbreakers proved Thursday that, in their hands at least, rock doesn't need any saving.

Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne and his six-piece band kicked off the concert with a sometimes-sleepy hour-long set that included several new songs from his latest CD, "The Naked Ride Home," as well as old favorites like "The Pretender" and "Running on Empty." Particularly impressive was his bluesy "Culver Moon."

The mood turned electric, though, when Petty -- dressed in a maroon velvet jacket and faded jeans, his long blond hair brushing his shoulders -- strode onstage with The Heartbreakers and launched into "The Last DJ."

That would be the first of a half dozen new tunes Petty would unveil during the show. The new songs, from the ballad "Have Love Will Travel" to the snarling, discordant "Joe" ("the meanest, nastiest song I ever wrote," Petty said), were well-received.

In fact, it's hard to remember a louder, more appreciative Arena audience. Just when it seemed like the screams couldn't get any more intense, the audience amped up its enthusiasm.

Petty and his bandmates seemed genuinely impressed by the response.

"I want to play here every night," he said. "This is great."

Petty plucked some rarely performed tunes from his albums, including Gene Clark's 1964 song "Feel A Whole Lot Better" off Petty's "Full Moon Fever."

And, of course, the set list included plenty of Petty's trademark songs about average guys and girls living their lives the best they can.

The talented band -- with such standouts as guitarist Mike Campbell and pianist Benmont Tench -- found new life in favorites like "Free Fallin'," "I Won't Back Down," "Mary Jane's Last Dance," "The Waiting," "Refugee," "Running Down a Dream" and "You Don't Know How it Feels."

And Petty -- his distinctive nasal tone in fine form -- seemed to discover new phrasing and inflection in even his most well-worn numbers.

After a more than 90-minute set, Petty and his band returned to a standing ovation for a half-hour encore that included a jammy reprise of "Mary Jane's Last Dance," introduced by a little old-time soul call-and-response, and a boogie-woogie cover of Chuck Berry's "Carol."

"We're very proud to tell you we're here tonight on this tour with no corporate sponsorship whatsoever," Petty told the crowd near the show's end. "We're brought to you by you. Seems like a pretty good arrangement, doesn't it?"

Indeed.

Tom Petty plays it like it should be
MARTY HUGHLEY

Tom Petty liked things better the way they were. He wishes the music world could, you might say, find its old-time used-to-be.

In the songs from his new album, "The Last DJ" -- as well as in some of the comments he made during his Sunday night performance at the Rose Garden arena -- he shows a defiant disdain for the corporate, top-down dynamics of current pop culture and fondly recalls a time when the industry didn't manipulate consumer choice and the pursuit of money didn't compromise artistry.

Never mind that there never really was such a pure and simple time in the annals of popular music -- it's an appealing and admirable ideal nonetheless.

For a willful rock 'n' roller, however, the combination of nostalgia and idealism can make for a tricky chemistry, sometimes coming out less radical than reactionary. But what Petty longs for is a more freewheeling impulse, the power of a time when it seemed that music could redeem a corrupt world or at least stand apart from it. (And if the implicitly liberal bent of Petty's message wasn't already clear, he also mentioned on Sunday that, among his current social concerns, he is "scared of Republicans.")

So, though the music he's making with his longtime band the Heartbreakers may look back, it never seems stuck in the past. If anything, Sunday's show was a rousing argument about how a rock 'n' roll concert ought to be.

The commitment to quality and value was signified first off by the choice of opening act. Rather than the hit or miss prospect of some unproven young band, Jackson Browne provided the reliable pleasures one would expect from a legend of the singer-songwriter movement. Looking as boyish and sounding as coolly confident as ever, Browne lived up to his mellow, literate image, but also proved his rock bona fides with a powerful version of "Culver Moon" before winding up the set with the deserved fan favorites "The Pretender" and "Running On Empty."

Compared to the feel-good vibe Petty's shows usually have, Sunday's set accentuated darker currents. "Joe," a rumbling rocker, painted a grim portrait of corporate exploitation ("He gets to be famous, I get to be rich!" the title character gloats), while images of flame surrounded Petty on the video screens, as if to illustrate the Faustian bargain musicians enter into with major labels. Other new songs such as the glowering "When a Kid Goes Bad" and "Lost Children," which echoes the Allman Brothers in its intro and middle section, fit with the theme of dangerous times, yet added a broader social dimension.

Above all the show was about the honest presentation of real musicianship. And as always Petty was ably backed by all the Heartbreakers, but especially by guitarist Mike Campbell, who may be the best in the business when it comes to playing white-hot solos and lead lines while maintaining marvelous control over every tonal nuance.

Maybe rock 'n' roll never has existed in an ideal world, but in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, it has something close to an ideal band.

The waiting pays off for Petty's fans
MICHAEL HILL; The News Tribune

Some things change, but not Tom Petty.

Through 30 years in the music business, he's been a consistent audience favorite with lean, melodic rock 'n' roll that borrows as much from the Byrds as it does from Dylan, the Beatles and Chuck Berry.

And it was no different Saturday night at the Tacoma Dome, where a diverse crowd received Petty and his longtime band the Heartbreakers like starving wolves at a buffet line. Hanging on every word, every hook and every three-chord riff, fans whooped, hollered and largely remained on their feet for the duration of the shaggy-haired rocker's 2 1/2-hour show.

Opening with the title cut from their latest album, "The Last DJ," Petty and the Heartbreakers (guitarist Mike Campbell, piano player Benmont Tench, bassist Ron Blair, drummer Steve Ferrone and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston) plowed through a high-voltage set that featured classics ("Free Fallin'," "The Waiting," "Refugee"), lost gems ("Love is a Long Road") and half-a-dozen cuts off the new CD. And, unlike most concerts, the audience went crazy for not only the hits, not only the chestnuts, but for absolutely all of it.

At least part of the reason for that could be that Petty – who's beginning to look more and more like Willie Nelson – is the kind of performer who acknowledges his fans as much as they acknowledge him. Another part of it could be that the Heartbreakers are one of the most solid units in rock – an airtight assembly of musicians led by Campbell's sinewy guitar leads, colored by Tench's piano and anchored by Ferrone's sturdy stomp.

Whatever the reason, it was obviously good enough for the crowd, which, though less than capacity, more than made up for that with its wildly enthusiastic response.

Adding to the night's appeal was opener Jackson Browne, who led his six-piece band through an hour-long set that focused largely on material from his new album, "The Naked Ride Home." Browne, who's still a dead ringer for the kid on the cover of his self-titled 1972 debut, was in fine voice throughout, alternating on guitar and piano and offering up characteristically uncompromising takes on both the personal and the political.

He and his fine group dragged out a few warhorses ("Running on Empty," "The Pretender," "Boulevard"), but the highlight of their set was undoubtedly the inclusion of "Fountain of Sorrow," a masterful bit of songwriting from his third album that shows why Browne is still in business after all these years.

Petty, Jackson deliver the goods
By Scott Iwasaki
Deseret News music editor

TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS, WITH JACKSON BROWNE, E Center, Nov. 5.

Concerts don't need flash pots, gyrating dancers or young singers to get the crowd cheering. Tuesday night, two elder statesmen of rock 'n' roll proved to the world that a good concert just needs good music.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Jackson Browne treated a classic-rock-starved audience to a smorgasbord of hits and new songs at the E Center.

Browne began by playing to a nearly empty arena, but he wrapped up his nine-song set to a nearly sold-out house. He started off with "Boulevard" and worked his way to "Running on Empty."

In between, he served up "Culver Moon" and "The Pretender." He also offered a plate of new tunes, including "The Night Inside Me," "About My Imagination" and "The Naked Ride Home."

Browne's mix was clean and balanced, and though his features have become a little more gaunt with age, his voice was still as warm as a summer day.

Then, Petty hit the stage and cranked out the first notes of his latest song, "The Last DJ," culled from the album of the same name. But he wasted no time dipping into an older tune, "Love Is a Long Road" and topped that off with another new song — the Dylanesque "Have Love Will Travel."

The Heartbreakers — guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, guitarist Scott Thurston and bassist Ron Blair — took potshots at the corporate world with the hard-hitting anthem "Joe" and the introspectively dynamic "Can't Stop the Sun."

Petty's no-nonsense attitude cooked up some rowdy emotions with his trademark "Refugee," the defiant "Won't Back Down," the soaring "Free Fallin' " and the restless "King's Highway."

A couple of nice surprises included the jangly "Woman in Love," the catchy "The Waiting" and Chuck Berry's "Carol."

Still, the band made sure it pleased everyone with "Mary Jane's Last Dance," "Running Down a Dream" and "Yer So Bad," all of which featured Campbell's spitfire leads.

With a red-hot set list like that, there wasn't any need for fancy pyrotechnics. Petty and Browne demonstrated that all that matters is attitude and the music.

Tom & Dana at Stones Show
Here's a picture of Tom & Dana (can only see Dana's hair in this pic) walking into the Wiltern Theatre Monday night to see The Rolling Stones! So THIS is what Tom does on his nights off when on tour!

Classic Heartbreakers' Concert Anything But Petty
BY DAN NAILEN
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

WEST VALLEY CITY -- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' two-hours-plus show at the E center Tuesday night demonstrated every reason the band is an American classic and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

There were the jangling guitar rockers that have been the band's trademark. There were the searing ballads that always seemed so unlikely coming from a Southern rock band capable of such menace and sneering attitude. And there were the pointed criticisms of music industry's business-as-usual practices.

Making all these dimensions come together is the undeniable chemistry among Petty and the musicians, particularly guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench. The three have been together since the beginning, and each is vital to its generation-spanning sound.

Much of the first hour was dedicated to Petty's new "The Last DJ" album. "Have Love Will Travel," a chiming love song, already sounds like a classic. "When a Kid Goes Bad," "Can't Stop the Sun" sounded all the better played next to undeniable hits such as "Free Fallin'," "I Won't Back Down" and a sprawling "You Don't Know How It Feels."

Petty introduce other songs by announcing their era:

"We're going to try a couple from the early '80s," he said before "A Woman in Love" and "The Waiting." "You remember the '80s don't you? Ronald Reagan was president and there were no more quaaludes."

And the cavalcade of hits one would expect followed, to the pleasure of the crowd.

Skipping his hits is Tom Petty's approach
By Spencer Patterson
LAS VEGAS SUN

Where: Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts.

Tickets: $55-85.

Rating (out of 5 stars): ***

"'Free Fallin', 'Breakdown,' 'American Girl' ..."

A woman in section 205 excitedly rattled off some of Tom Petty's greatest hits as a crowd of about 5,300 headed for the doors at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts on Friday night.

The makings of a satisfying performance, to be sure. But in this case, the vociferous concert-goer was actually naming songs Petty and his Heartbreakers had just skipped over.

Channeling the title character from his latest album, "The Last DJ," Petty spent two hours spinning through a vast catalog that stretches back 25 years. According to the title track's lyrics, the last DJ "plays what he wants to play," and Petty certainly did that on this night.

Instead of putting the needle to his most enduring classics, the aging rocker supplemented a set list heavy on new material with a parade of what can best be described as his "greatest near-misses."

Ultimately, the dearth of easily recognizable music kept fans from connecting with the performers, as large sections of the audience remained seated throughout.

To be fair, Petty did give the crowd fair warning his show would take the road less traveled.

"We're going to dig deep, deep, deep into the catalog tonight," he announced in his instantly identifiable whiny drawl. He made the announcement minutes after coming out onstage looking as if he'd escaped from 1985's classic "Alice in Wonderland"-themed video for, "Don't Come Around Here No More" (another hit not performed, incidentally).

Petty's sandy blond hair hung just past his shoulders, where it met up with a burgundy-colored velvet jacket. A retro-print tie, black T-shirt and stone-washed jeans completed the unusual ensemble.

Appearing spry and active at 52, the charismatic Petty showed off his unusual vocal style, constantly altering phrasings and bouncing between octaves to give his music a somewhat improvised feel.

Petty's longtime sidekick, guitarist Mike Campbell, continues to be one of rock music's most underappreciated talents, stealing the spotlight on many occasions with his fiery electric solos.

The six-piece band played eight songs from the recently released "The Last DJ." Several of the numbers thematically link to form a scathing assault on today's music industry.

"This is the meanest, nastiest song I ever wrote," Petty warned before launching into "Joe," a biting assault on record executives:

"Bring me a girl, they're always the best, and put 'em on stage, and you have 'em undress, some angel whore, who can learn a guitar lick. Hey, that's what I call music."

Accurate as his assessment may be, though, it also seems rather hypocritical for Petty to blast the record business while continuing to release his CDs on major label Warner Bros. If he is truly incensed by the majors' practices, wouldn't moving to an independent label be a more genuine way to show disapproval?

Some of the new music is strong, no question. "Lost Children" and "Can't Stop the Sun" both rocked, while the pretty "Have Love, Will Travel" showed off the venue's primo acoustics. But by and large, the unfamiliar material failed to energize many in the crowd.

They waited patiently for the string of favorites certain to come. It never did.

During the main set, only "The Waiting," "You Don't Know How it Feels," "Runnin' Down a Dream" and a throwaway run-through of "I Won't Back Down" came from Petty's A-list.

The rest of the evening was spent with second-tier numbers, among them "Feel a Whole Lot Better" and "Yer So Bad" off "Full Moon Fever," "Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)" off "Damn the Torpedoes" and "A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)" off "Hard Promises."

Wonderful songs, certainly, and a grouping that would appeal to any hard-core Petty devotee.

But unlike recent Las Vegas visitors Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney, Petty can't get away with turning his show into an introspective look at his musical career. His fans expect hits, plain and simple.

Even Bruce Springsteen, who played almost his entire new album at an August concert, nodded to casual fans with "Born to Run," "Glory Days," "Born in the U.S.A." and other standards.

Petty's opening act, singer/songwriter Jackson Browne, also got it, closing his solid but unspectacular 40-minute set with "The Pretender" and "Running on Empty," two of his best-known compositions.

Only in the encore did Petty give the crowd a glimpse at what might have been, tapping 1990s hit singles "You Wreck Me" and "Last Dance With Mary Jane," the latter a fully extended, explosive show-capper.

In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Petty asserted that, "Only a complete greedhead would charge $150 for a concert ticket. My top price is about $65, and I turn a very healthy profit on that."

Considering that most in attendance Friday night actually paid $85 to see him play, Petty might have put more time into constructing a set list that wouldn't leave fans counting up songs they didn't get to hear.

Tom Petty rants, rocks Phoenix
Larry Rodgers
The Arizona Republic

Although he was performing in Cricket Pavilion, which is owned by a cell-phone company and heavily promoted by one of the world's largest entertainment conglomerates, rocker Tom Petty was having none of that corporate nonsense at his concert on Saturday night in west Phoenix.

"We're here tonight with no corporate sponsorship whatsoever," the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer proudly proclaimed during his uplifting, two-hour set.

"If we were brought to you by Pepsi-Cola, then Pepsi-Cola would own a piece of this band," Petty said, as he lamented life in "corporate America."

"So we're brought to you by you," he told the screaming fans who had filled Cricket to near its 20,000 capacity.

With the help of one of rock's best backing bands, the Heartbreakers, Petty drove his point home by spotlighting his new album, "The Last DJ."

Opening with the album's title track, which laments the disappearance of disc jockeys who are allowed to determine their own set lists and speak their mind on the radio, Petty immediately had the audience in his pocket with his smooth, seductive take on old-school rock and roll.

He soon followed that tune with the new "Joe," an aggressive rant about lambasting power-drunk rock promoters who have grown fat off artists: "You get to be famous / I get to be rich," Petty sang, before snarling the chorus: "Bring me a girl, they're always the best / You put 'em onstage and you let 'em undress."

"Boy, did I take some heat for this (song)," Petty said, adding that he viewed that reaction as "the songwriter's greatest reward."

Not all of Petty's new album or stage show focuses on the evils of the music industry -- which, it should be noted, made the singer a multimillionaire.

Petty and his five-piece ensemble offered up a down-and-dirty version of the new "When A Kid Goes Bad," which spotlighted Mike Campbell's slicing slide guitar, which segued into a dual lead with Petty.

Also standing out from the new CD was "Have Love Will Travel," a multi-layered take on Petty's brand of straight-ahead, American rock. He drew one of many screaming ovations when he sang, "How about a cheer for all those bad girls / and all the boys that play that rock and roll."

Although he also played many of the older hits from his 30-year career, what stood out about this performance is how Petty continues to craft new songs that instantly connect with listeners, as if they were classics from the '70s.

The mellow-yet-rocking "Lost Children," performed before quasi-psychedelic video, is an example, riding on Petty's honey-smooth vocals, backed by Campbell's guitar and Benmont Tench's exquisite keyboard work. The slower "Like A Diamond" also was enjoyable.

Of course, one of the main reasons Cricket was packed was the anticipation that concert-goers had for the huge string of hits that has made Petty a superstar.

He and the Heartbreakers -- who also included Tempe-based drummer Steve Ferrone, guitarist Scott Thurston and returning bassist Ron Blair -- didn't disappoint, throwing down satisfying versions of classics such as "Don't Do Me Like That," "I Won't Back Down," "A Woman In Love," and "The Waiting."

At age 50, Petty -- dressed in a ruby-red coat, dark T-shirt, and blue jeans -- still has rock-star magnetism, drawing screams when he ventured near the edge of the stage to bash on one of several vintage guitars, including his famed Rickenbacher. He and the Heartbreakers show virtually no signs of slowing down.

That point was punctuated by scorching encore versions of 1994's "You Wreck Me" and 1993's "Mary Jane's Last Dance."