Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

I went to Best Buy last week and bought the new DVD Runnin Down The Drain. The package starts with a most excellent 4 hour documentary on the band by director Peter Bogdonovich. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to the film. It seems that Tom Petty had a camera on him from the time he was three. There's great 8mm footage of Mudcrutch playing early versions of future hits like "Breakdown." earlier this summer I put the first Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in my car's CD player. It's incredible how many of those songs have become staples and even more incredible how contemporary the album still sounds. It's a testament to the timelessness of Petty's songwriting.

I remember that day (though I don't remember exactly) when me and my friends were hanging out over at our friend Misty's house. Each of us always prided ourselves on introducing each other to new music. That day, Misty pulled out the first Tom Petty album. It was in the midst of the whole punk revolution and the picture of Tom in a leather jacket led one to believe that this was going to be a Johnny Thunders type record. The song Misty played us as an introduction was "American Girl." To steal a phrase, I was gob-smacked! I could believe how cool he sounded and I loved the speed of the track. I must have made her play the song four times before letting her play us anything else off the record. Afterwards I headed over to Sam The Record Man to buy the album for myself.

From that moment on I was a Tom Petty devotee. I would buy all of his records the day they hit the stores. The first time I say them play was at the Palladium in New York City where I was going to university. It must have been around the time of Damn the Torpedoes. The Joe Perry Project opened the show. To the best of my recollection, it was one of the finest live rock shows I had seen in my life up until that point. Petty was in great voice and the band was as tight as any I had ever seen.

What I didn't know that night (and couldn't have possibly known at the time) was that this would be one of the few times I'd get to see Tom Petty live. I don't remember if he played NYC again during my time there (1979 - 1984). He probably did but I didn't get to go to many shows after 1982. After I moved back to Toronto Petty concerts were fewer and farther between. The next time I saw him was 2000 or 2001 around the time of "Last Dance For Mary Jane" when he played the Molson Amphitheatre. Again he delivered one of the great performances. Earlier this year I took Melanie to see the band play at the Molson Amphitheatre. Going in to the show she thought she didn't know that many Tom Petty songs. Coming out she was a fan, realizing that she knew many more of his songs than she thought.

When people talk about the great rock and roll bands of the U.S., Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are almost an after thought which is weird considering they're still making music and selling out stadiums thirty years later. If you sit down with Runnin Down The Drain though, the argument is over. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers belong right beside The Doors, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, the Band and any other great "The" band that you could possibly think of.