FROM THE VAULT: OTD 30 Years Ago – Tom Petty Put Music Front and Center At Riverport (6-2-1995)
(Originally published June 10, 1995 Edwardsville (IL) Intelligencer) – by Sean Derrick
Last week heavy rains caused flash flooding, closing all but one road into an out of Riverport Amphitheatre.
That didn’t stop veteran rocker Tom Petty from playing this stop on his Dogs With Wings Tour. Petty came on stage at 9:30, nearly 30 minutes later than scheduled to try to accommodate many of the fans still stuck in the ungodly traffic.
For some, waiting in traffic more than three hours (yes, you read that right) was worth the wait. Others felt as if they could have used the $30 per ticket on something more useful.
Once the show began Petty came out strong, opening his show with several of his hits, including “Love is a Long Road”, and “You Don’t Know How It Feels.”
Tom Petty has long been a staple in the rock world, consistently putting out solid albums with many Top-40 hits. Unfortunately, going against the touring norm Petty crowded most of his hits into the first 40 minutes of the show. Songs such as “Free Fallin'”, “You Wreck Me”, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”, and “I Won’t Back Down” brought the sold-out crowd of 21,000 to its feet.
Petty performed “Learning to Fly” with only guitar and piano accompaniment while drummer Steve Ferrone played a soft hi-hat and bongo that produced a nice break. That would have been nice, but Petty kept that slow, monotonous pace for the next eight songs. This, of course, did nothing but kill the excitement that Petty had worked so hard to establish earlier on.
It was during this part of the show that many fans were more interested in talking amongst themselves or hitting the concession stands than paying attention to what was going on on-stage.
Musically the Heartbreakers, Petty’s longtime band, sounded exceptional all evening. Guitarists Mike Campbell and Scott Thurston, keyboardist Benmont Tench, bassist Howie Epstein, and Ferrone clicked on all levels throughout the show behind Petty’s strong vocals and guitar work.
The high point musically came during the instrumental piece “Diamond Head”, which featured Campbell in a great be-bopping/”surf’s-up dude” rocker. Petty, himself, calls it “a boogie-woogie-get-down-hallucinogenic type song.”
Petty, looking scraggly with a beard, staggered around the stage during “I Just Want to Make Love to You.” I couldn’t make out much of what he was saying/singing, but that could have been the simple fact that his mic was so low. This could have been simply fixed with an adjustment from the sound engineer.
For what it is worth, Petty did try to re-ignite the fuse he had extinguished earlier by performing a new unrecorded piece called “Drivin’ Down to Georgia”. The song has a great tempo and melody, but Tom, please lose the piano interlude and the spoken part, or at least rearrange it.
He then performed “Refugee” and “Running Down a Dream”, but by then it was too late. Much of the crowd, perhaps fearing either another traffic nightmare or Petty starting another acoustic set, headed for the exits.
Petty prides and bills himself as a straight ahead/no frills rocker who doesn’t need laser lights or massive video screens to excite an audience. And he is usually correct. But this night much of the excitement evaporated after the first eight songs.
Tem Petty Setlist:
Love is a Long Road
You Don’t Know How It Feels
Listen to Her Heart
I Won’t Back Down
Free Fallin’
You Wreck Me
Diamond Head (The Ventures cover)
Mary Jane’s Last Dance
Cabin Down Below
Learning to Fly
Time to Move On
The Waiting
Kings Highway
It Won’t Be Wrong (The Byrds cover)
Two Gunslingers
Girl on LSD
Windflowers
Yer So Bad
Around and Around (Chuck Berry cover)
It’s Good to Be King
Drivin’ Down to Georgia
Refugee
Runnin’ Down a Dream
Honey Bee
American Girl
