NASHVILLE |FROM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/ AMANDA CAGAN
TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS ADD
A FEW NEW PAGES TO THE ROCK & ROLL HISTORY BOOKS,
AS THEY CONCLUDE 20 PRECEDENT-SETTING SHOWS
AT THE FILLMORE IN SAN FRANCISCO
TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS concluded their 20-night sold-out engagement at the Fillmore in San Francisco February 7 with a marathon three-and-a-half hour concert. “It’s really going to be hard to leave here,” TOM PETTYtold the crowd, which wouldn’t let him walk offstage–and he obliged them with an expansive set that spanned his body of work, a mini-set with blues legend John Lee Hooker, and an 11-song encore. Both the February 6 and 7 shows were broadcast on the Internet, while the latter show was beamed nationwide across radio stations via the Westwood One network.
The Fillmore engagement, which kicked off January 10, wasn’t only a historic, precedent-setting and critically-acclaimed engagement. For TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS–MIKE CAMPBELL, guitars; BENMONT TENCH, keyboards; and HOWIE EPSTEIN, bass–it was the chance to play casual but impactful sets that didn’t dwell on hits. Throughout the run, the band–augmented by their longtime touring associate SCOTT THURSTON (guitars, harmonica) and drummer STEVE FERRONE–rotated some 70 songs including: rarities from the PLAYBACK boxed set; acoustic versions of their classics like “Even The Losers” and “American Girl”; and cover songs mainly from the ’50s and ’60s that purposefully revealed their rhythm & blues, rockabilly, blues, psychedelic, surf and country roots. The run was also notable for the mini-sets they played within their own shows with rockabilly great Carl Perkins (January 25 and 26), Byrds founder Roger McGuinn (January 31 and February 1) and the aforementioned John Lee Hooker (February 6 and 7).
As Phil Gallo of the Daily Variety noted of the Byrds covers in the set with McGuinn, “After a potent ‘You Ain’t Going Nowhere,’ the band fired up a reprise of ‘Eight Miles High,’ backloading it with trippy and incandescent instrumental passages that turned back the clock in this fabled room.”
For the shows, PETTY also invited an eclectic array of opening acts whom PETTY himself introduced onstage every night: new San Francisco singer/songwriter Brendan Benson, ex-Pixies frontman Frank Black, Iris DeMent, Pete Droge, the surf band known as Los Straitjackets, Byrds founder Roger McGuinn, The Presidents of the United States of America, and The Wallflowers.
Just as varied were the artists and celebrities who came out to the shows: Andre Agassi, Dusty Baker (San Francisco Giants’ manager), Jackson Browne, Dave Bryson (Counting Crows), Tre’ Cool (Green Day), John Fogerty, Sammy Hagar, Chris Isaak, Dave Koz, Huey Lewis, members of Los Lobos, Linda Ronstadt, Rick Rubin, Winona Ryder, Boz Scaggs, Bob Weir, Mare Winningham and Neil Young.
Meanwhile, the Mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, proclaimed February 7, 1997–the final show of the engagement–“Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers Day” in San Francisco.
Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Joel Selvin observed the historic value of the shows: “What it will mean in the long run to Petty and his band, only time will tell. In the meantime, what is happening at the Fillmore is nothing less than rock ‘n’ roll at its best. And nothing less than the making of a significant piece of rock ‘n’ roll history.”
Fans who want to check out the set lists from every show can do so by logging onto the Warner Bros. Records website at http://www.wbr.com/tompetty
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