Reviews of Tom Petty Shows Past

Steve Kuhn
The Washington Post

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June 28, 1999
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers hadn't toured in four years, and Petty hadn't recorded with his longtime band since 1991, but there was no rust evident, or audible, when they performed at the Nissan Pavilion on Friday night for 15,000 fans hoping to be rewarded for their patience.

Which they were.

Though Petty performed a quintet of songs from his recent "Echo" album, he wisely served up an invigorating career retrospective, a 23-song set that ranged from 1976's breakthrough single, the tersely propulsive "Breakdown," to a wistful "Walls" from his 1996 soundtrack project, "She's the One."

Kicking off with "Jammin' Me," his smoldering collaboration with Bob Dylan, and the twangy-guitar driven "Runnin' Down a Dream," Petty moved easily between forceful roots rockers and emotionally scarred confessionals. The latter included "You Don't Know How It Feels," the roiling "You Wreck Me" and "Don't Come Around Here No More," whose languorous psychedelia and melodic ennui mask a simmering rage over romantic betrayal.

That juxtaposition is also evident in the new "Rhino Skin," in which a palpable vulnerability is barely muted by caustic asides, and "It's Good to Be King." Though grounded in melancholy bordering on self-pity--the title phrase is more ironic than boastful--"King" turned into one of the night's highlights when the Heartbreakers fleshed it out with thunderous cadenzas, including a somber one-note samba by guitarist Mike Campbell and an instrumental passage that suggested a man half drowning, half floating in space.

Campbell, Petty's longtime musical partner, got a pair of showcases--the punchless "I Don't Wanna Fight" and "Penetration," a twangy, reverb-heavy homage to '50s and '60s surf'n'spy guitar instrumentals--but was really at his best providing supple, supportive fills, chiming power chords and sterling leads on such songs as "Mary Jane's Last Dance," the swaggering and defiant "I Won't Back Down" and "Free Girl Now," and the jangling "American Girl."

Campbell isn't the only first-rate musician in the Heartbreakers, of course, just the most visible one. Keyboardist Benmont Tench provided his usual tasteful colorations, while drummer Steve Ferrone and bassist Howie Epstein maintained a lean rhythmic momentum that never overwhelmed the music but pushed it forward and outward as needed.

For instance, on an introspective new song, "Room at the Top," what started as acoustic meditation gradually shifted into raucous emotional venting. Another new song, the Dylanesque "Swingin'," used an insistent sway to champion independent spirits resisting seemingly settled fates--Petty updating his own "I Won't Back Down."

The encore offered the curious bookends of "Free Fallin' " and "Learning to Fly" sandwiched around a liberating but too-long version of "G-L-O-R-I-A." "I'm learning to fly/ but I ain't got wings," Petty mused in his show closer, adding, "Comin' down is the hardest thing." That may have been a challenge for the fans as well, but it's one they seemed eager to address.

Richard Harrington
The Washington Post

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July 2, 2001
Tom Petty's gray-white beard may be giving him a slightly weathered look these days, but his Saturday show at Nissan Pavilion emphasized undiminished energy and vitality.

This was a no-glitz, just-hits performance under a quintet of ballroom chandeliers and before a stained-glass cathedral backdrop that changed hues over the course of the concert, not unlike a mood ring. Petty and the Heartbreakers -- celebrating 25 years, mostly together -- opened with the hard-driving, propulsive "Runnin' Down a Dream," the insistently defiant "I Won't Back Down" and a sinewy "Breakdown" in which Petty "whooed" the crowd, which whoo-whooed him right back.

That tendentious trio of songs established the night's agenda: With no new album to promote, Petty and his chief cohorts, guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench, served up proven standards and just a single nod to musical influences, a vamping cover of Booker T and the MG's "Green Onions." The recent past was addressed on the Dylanesque swagger of "Billy the Kid," but there was also a dip into the Heartbreakers song bag for seldom-played favorites, in this case, the triumphant "Here Comes My Girl" and caustic "Even the Losers," both from 1979.

Petty paced the show smartly, tossing in acoustic-tinged favorites such as "Into the Great Wide Open" and "Learning to Fly" with the Eastern-flavored kiss-off "Don't Come Around Here No More" (with Campbell conjuring sitar sounds from his guitar to weave into Tench's cellolike keyboard figures). Also strong was the melancholy irony of "It's Good to Be King," given an expansive reading that spurred strong guitar solos from Petty and Campbell.

Sometimes, however, the Heartbreakers lapsed into meandering jam-band noodling, as on "You Don't Know How It Feels" and "Too Much Ain't Enough." The latter part of the show revisited the hard-rocking energy of its kickoff, with urgent renditions of "Refugee" and "You Wreck Me." As for the crowd, an evening of enthusiastic singalongs was rewarded with full-throated encores of "Free Fallin'" and the charming Byrdsian jangle of Petty's breakthrough song, "American Girl."

Since daylight can be as destructive to ballads and sensitive lyrics as it is to vampires, opener Jackson Browne wisely emphasized his more upbeat, rocking tunes. Browne's short, taut set opened with "Boulevard" and, aside from the elegiac "Fountain of Sorrow," favored such energetic character explorations as "The Pretender," a breezy "Somebody's Baby" and such '70s SoCal standards as "Doctor My Eyes" and "Running on Empty," something the eternally youthful Browne seems in no danger of doing anytime soon.

Richard Harrington
The Washington Post

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July 19, 2002
Rock star Tom Petty's lasting appeal has always been his accessibility, in his American bar-band music and his approachable personality. He looks like the neighborhood cool dude who would probably come to your kegger if you got up the nerve to invite him. Which is basically what happened Wednesday night at Nissan Pavilion: With no album to promote, Petty and his Heartbreakers simply came to jam for a large and boisterous summertime crowd.

The show kicked off promisingly with "Runnin' Down a Dream," in a tight, jangly version that would have been just as appropriate as an encore. After a few more of the hits -- "I Won't Back Down," "Even the Losers," "I Need to Know" -- the show ran into a roadblock with a new tune, a down-tempo ballad called "Have Love, Will Travel."

Things rarely got up to speed again. By the time "Refugee" came, well into the generously long performance, the show was made soggy with arena rock guitar noodling best suited for shoe-gazing and kicking the keg.

The evening's opening act, the Brian Setzer Trio, set a level of intensity Petty and company rarely reached. Thrash-and-burn versions of "Runaway Boys," "I Fought the Law," "Rock This Town" and "Stray Cat Strut" expertly put the "rock" in rockabilly. Perhaps the former Stray Cat frontman and big band leader was showing off for Fred Gretsch, who owns the company that makes Setzer's guitars. With Gretsch in the audience, Setzer polished off his set with a couple of superbly finger-picked instrumentals that may have inspired a few guitar sales.

Buzz McClain
The Washington Post

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July 29, 2005
The Black Crowes just aren't an opening act. The group founded and fronted by the recently reunited Robinson brothers dominated Wednesday's bill at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

The Crowes, who are using a slot as an opener for Tom Petty's current tour to end a four-year hiatus, appear to be leaving their boogie past behind and turning into a jam band. Singer Chris Robinson, whose stringy hair and bushy beard give him the Dirtball Jesus look that generations of rockers have desired, still has a fabulous, Steve Marriott-style blues shriek and all the stage moves an arena bandleader could want.

But on lengthy, Allman Brothers-style arrangements of deep album cuts such as "P.25 London" and "Wiser Time," the elder Robinson had little to do but dance barefoot as little brother-guitarist Rich Robinson and others in the eight-piece lineup worked the crowd into a state of rock-and-roll delirium.

The few familiar tunes the band put into its 80-minute set -- among them "She Talks to Angels," "Twice as Hard" and "Remedy" -- were lumped together at the end. But the Crowes' rhythm section and Rich Robinson's very Keith Richards-like rhythm guitar made every song sound as if it had been sampled from an early-'70s live double album recorded at the Fillmore East. Layoff be damned, this band is at the top of its game.

Headliner Tom Petty covered Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and the Animals' "I'm Cryin'," and introduced "Melinda," a soft romantic tune of his own that will be included on a live DVD. The rest of the nearly two-hour set was made up of the pretty pop singles that Petty has produced over the past three decades. He saved his best for last, encoring with "American Girl," a tune with a riff so timeless the Strokes stole it.

Compared with the Crowes' perspirational set, Petty's performance seemed rote. But fans in and outside the sold-out amphitheater were ecstatic to see and sing along with Petty on tunes that obviously have left a mark. Before introducing members of his trusty backup band, the Heartbreakers, Petty told the crowd, "You know 'em all, you love 'em." He could just as well have been talking about his songs.

Dave McKenna
The Washington Post