Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers In Concert in Hartford CT

Tom Petty has long been one of my favorite artists. He is one of the few musicians who has stuck around over the past thirty years, still putting out good music and touring.

In all these years of being a fan, I've never seen him live. That is, until last night. I saw him at the Comcast Arena in Hartford CT.

The opening act for this leg of the tour was a little trio by the name of Crosby Stills and Nash. That kind of sealed the deal making me realize this was the tour to finally see.

With Petty turning 60 this year, and with CSN as the opening act, the crowd was a bit older. Yet, there were plenty of younger fans to make you have some hope for the future of music. They aren't all Lady Gaga fans.

Crosby Stills and Nash took the stage exactly at 8:00, doing a set that went from CSN classics like "Wooden Ships", "Deja Vu", "Almost Cut My Hair" and "Our House", to a cover of "Ruby Tuesday" and an encore of Stills' Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth" (ASIDE: Am I the only one who immediately thinks of THE MUPPET SHOW every time I hear this song?). The group still sounds good. While Stills vocals may have been difficult at times, he more than made up for it with several blistering guitar solos.

But the highlight of the set, and possibly the entire show, was their performance of "Southern Cross", one of my All Time Top Ten Favorite Songs. The crowd sang along for the first of many times during the night.

After 75 minutes, they left. Many in the audience might have thought they got their money's worth from them, but Tom Petty was up next.

Or was he?

There was a 45 minute intermission while it appeared the techs were having trouble setting the stage for the next act. This might have been forgiven if not for the fact it was a weeknight show and, well, this is an old crowd that has to get up the next morning!

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers finally took the stage at 10:00, opening with "Listen To Her Heart". The great thing about Petty is that, he has been around so long, has so many songs, that it was essentially a greatest hits show. He played "I Won't Back Down", "Refugee", "Don't Come Around Here No More" (which may have been the set highlight), "Mary Jane's Last Dance", along with acoustic sing along versions of "Free Fallin" and "Learning to Fly". Sadly, he didn't perform "The Waiting", another song in my Top Ten.

The tour was in promotion of his new album MOJO (a download of which came with each ticket purchased). The new album is very good, a bit bluesier and mellower than his earlier work. In the middle of the show, he did a four song set of songs from the album. While the songs were good, he kind of lost the audience with this. I saw a lot of people updating their Facebook status on cellphones. It also didn't help that this was at around 11:00.

His encore was "Runnin Down A Dream" and "American Girl".

So, a great show.

Although, it got to be a bit depressing. Are there any artists today who will still be touring thirty or forty years from now? Is rock and roll dead?

And now some fun with YouTube, someone with a cellphone camera filmed a couple numbers last night. The audio isn't very good, but it will give you an idea of what it was like.



Crosby Stills and Nash sing "Southern Cross"



Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sing "I Won't Back Down"