Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
September 11, 2014 @ PNC Bank Arts Center-Holmdel, NJ
Article by Stina Marie Harris
Photos by Kathleen Ferry Photography
Some things get better with age. Ask a biker after a long ride south saddled up to the side of a mahogany bar in a faraway town which whiskey he prefers and he’ll tilt his head sideways and in a raspy voice tell you the whiskey aged longest tastes the best. Ask a fine feline out for a night on the town with her fellow cats which wine she prefers best and with certainty she’ll tell you the wine that’s matured in years because all things get better with age. Or ask my uncle which band he prefers best no matter the decade, no matter the album, and one name will come to mind. Petty. Aged perfect like a fine wine and smooth like a distilled whiskey, a single word so solid in structure and sound in support the name Petty has come to embody a timeless tale of music from decades past. Aged to perfection.
I grew up listening to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in my house when my dad would play an album on the family stereo and pipe it through the living room. I’d tap my toes and sway to a vibe that I only imagined was what Rock n Roll sounded like. Felt like. Moved like. I’d hear it at backyard bbqs at my uncles and imagine that all music had to sound like this. Feel like this. Move like this. Classics like “American Girl” and “Free Fallin” would lyrically curl around my thoughts and permeate my ambitions. Petty writes the kind of lyrics that dance across your skin and whisper sweet nothings to your heart as a plea to let them in. In they go and long they stay. The melodies and recognizable tones soar through the air as a stellar sense of spirit envelopes you. They are melodies that find their way across your tongue and through your lips as a whistled memory and travel with you through decades of hair metal and grunge.
Okay. Stop doing the math in your head. Admittedly, I wasn’t even thought of by the time Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers first album went platinum. Tom Pettys first solo record, Full Moon Fever, was released in 1989 and features some of the classics I grew up singing in the backyard. I was four. My uncle, however, has just about never missed an east coast Petty tour since 1983.
On September 11, 2014 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers took their Hypnotic Eye tour to Jersey and found solace on the stage at PNC Bank Arts Center. To a crowd of lifers, first timers, dreamers, believers, stoners, loners, and the ‘I-just-wanna-yell-Free-Fallin” rockers, Tom Petty was a larger than life image on stage with the Heartbreakers proudly cushioning Petty’s hard turns. It was my first Petty experience, but clearly the crowd was packed with seasoned professionals.
“So You Want to Be a Rock n Roll Star” started the night and the bass line set the scene. In a climate where many think Rock n Roll is dead or bands can’t seem to find the time to tune their guitars nor visit with fans, Petty emerged on a Thursday night like a beacon of hope to my sometimes jaded Rock n Roll heart. A voice in the crowd screamed an “I love you!” and back to it a Petty, dapper in his jacket and boots, bellowed “I love you too. I wish I could come down there and tell you that!” No matter how big the venue, in that moment each ticket holder felt like Petty and the fellas were in their living room hanging out smoking and drinking a bud. Both, on hand that evening of course. The sometimes stoic 63 year old rocker took his time through lyrics and songs and provided the added emotion that only a true gentleman of rock would take the time to do. Noticeably, the setlist played like an iPod shuffle of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers greatest hits. The classics and the synonymous song titles kept the pace of the night while new songs off the latest effort Hypnotic Eye fell right in place like Petty standards.
The talent pool on stage that night was one a music goer or a music journalist could only revel in awe of and appreciate the sound that melts together when capable musicians play with such skill and precision and leave the showboating and hairspray at home. The new album Hypnotic Eye is one of the bands strongest. Call me bias because I’m old enough to appreciate the album and the tour, but with guitar riffs and lyrical content like that on a song like “American Dream Plan B” is a hard argument otherwise. Sandwiched right between “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” and “Into the Great Wide Open”, “American Dream Plan B” soared as if it could have been placed on Damn the Torpedoes back in the 1970s. “Learning to Fly” gave the boys a vocal break as they shifted the lyrics to the audience. It was like church and the stage was the pulpit. Petty conducted the chorus as we sang, “learning to fly/but I ain’t got wings/coming down is the hardest thing.” An amused Petty paraded the stage with arms stretched out as wings and glowed in the stage lights as if staring into the sun.
Mike Campbell effortlessly raged on stage alongside Petty and the chemistry vibrated onto the crowd during songs like “Refugee” and “Runnin Down a Dream”. The sequence of songs took all parties on a roller coaster through the decades as if each song placed the listener at a different point in their life. I relived most moments through my uncle and the Princeton University employee standing next to me, but that allowed me to embrace the night for what it was. And what it was I can only describe as a night echoing pages from the American player songbook. Real rock n roll. What I imagined it sounded like as a kid. Felt like. Moved like. What I bleed and what those who truly know and love Rock n Roll imagined as a kid.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are the kind of rock band that smiles. They are the band that nods at their fans and points at the photographers in the camera pit. The tour in support of their new record Hypnotic Eye has seen great reviews to accompany the extraordinary reviews circling around the album. If you’re a seasoned Petty fan, you already know all about it. Know your roots. Grow your roots. The foundation of Rock n Roll is alive and well in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Feel it and move with it.
