Tom Petty lays back in the boonies
By Michael Tatum
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Laid back and mellow as they are, you’d figure Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers would be a little boring in concert.
But what the band may lack in energy, it makes up for in its
impressive musicianship, its leader’s just-folks charm, and of
course, an astounding song catalog that contains some of the
hookiest rock ‘n’ roll hits to grace the top 40 in the last 20
years.
San Bernardino Blockbuster Pavilion, where Petty and his backing
band the Heartbreakers played last Friday night, is hard to find, a
long way from UCLA, and unless you have a good set of binoculars,
not exactly the best venue to see your heroes up close and
personal.
But the the band’s committed performance, enhanced by a
first-rate sound system that gave distinct clarity to each
instrument and voice, made the extra effort on the part of its fans
worth it. Even a moderate Petty fan can’t resist the charm of
singing radio classics like "Refugee," "Yer So Bad," "Free Fallin’"
or "Running Down A Dream"with several hundred other fans.
An acoustic set, inserted in the middle of the show, bestowed
upon the program as much intimacy as can be had in a show of this
size. In it, Petty not only performed a few tracks from the quiet,
admittedly subpar new record Wildflowers, but he also scaled down
some of his best known songs: "Learning To Fly" and "The
Waiting."
Petty ran into trouble only when the band stretched out and gave
the spotlight to Mike Campbell’s anonymous guitar solos,
particularly on the torpid new single "It’s Good To Be King" and
the yet-unrecorded "Going Down To Georgia."
If this was Petty’s way of indulging the largely stoned and/or
drunk audience, he did a far better job with an amusing drug song
recounting a list of past girlfriends and the controlled substances
that distinguished them. "I’m not going to apologize for that
song," Petty deadpanned.
The Jayhawks (who record for the American label, coincidentally
owned by Wildflowers producer Rick Rubin) served as Petty’s opening
band. Live, the group exhibited an edge sorely lacking on its
current CD, Tomorrow The Green Grass. But the songwriting isn’t
always sure-fire, and front- man Mark Olsen lacks Petty’s ordinary
joe charisma.