Karl is a huge fan of Tom Petty and will often play his guitar with tunes from his much loved Tom Petty songbook. He says that they are simple songs, fun to play and since our dear Tom borderline talks through his lyrics...easy to sing to. Not a lot of super high Freddie Mercury-ish notes with old T.P. Anyway, Tom and his Heartbreakers came to town the other night and Karl's nice wife (me!) got tickets for the two of us to go. We had awesome seats, so we were able to really check out the band up close. Midway through the second song, Karl leans into me and says "that's not Tom Petty."
Hmmmm...who is it then? "I don't know, but he is way too happy and charmed by the audience to be Tom."
It's true that Tom did seem very surprised that the house was packed with cheering, fistpumping graying old rockers like us. He would look up from his mic and grin and shake his head in what seemed like disbelief that we all showed up. He was like a humble rock legend not taking himself too seriously... very refreshing. And once Karl was able to get over the idea that his once skinny, angry young, pompous pain in the ass rockstar was now a laid back, kind of paunchy, really pretty happy to be on stage kind of musician- he loved the show too. From one of his earliest albums...Damn the Torpedoes in 1976 until now- no one else could ever stand in for him... he is who he is.
Here is Tom and a couple of heartbreakers. I was able to take only one photo before the battery in my camera died.
Since I didn't get anymore fun photos of Tom, here is one of Karl playing a Tom Petty song in our kitchen. Rock on.
