Review: Kelly Besaw
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers made a stop on their 40th anniversary tour at the Constellation Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua, NY on July 2. The veteran rockers played to a sold-out crowd of nearly 15,000.
The band played mostly hits but dropped in an occasional B side or rare track. They kicked off their setting by going way back to their first song off their very first album, “Rockin’ Around (With You).” Petty and the Heartbreakers took us on a ride through time which Petty described as “we’re going to pretend like this is a record spinning around up here playing our entire catalog and every now and then we are going to drop the needle.”
The band worked in classic hits such as “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “You Got Lucky,” and “Don’t Come Around Here No More” as well as oddities like “Forgotten Man” and “It’s Good to Be King.” Petty paused at one point and said, “this next one’s a request. Well, I made the request myself but people ask us to play this one and we don’t very much so I made the request myself. The band broke into an awesome rendition of “Crawling Back to You.”
The guitar changes were something to talk about! Petty and Mike Campbell changed guitars between almost every song. They have some gorgeous instruments and they know how to play them. The band sounded amazing. Their version of “Yer So Bad” was rocking and they ended the night with an amped up rendition of “Runnin’ Down a Dream.” Petty and the Heartbreakers took a very short break before returning to the stage to “Squeeze in” two more songs, “You Wreck Me” and fan favorite “American Girl.”
Some bands withstand the test of time, others do not. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are living proof that after 40 years, a band can still get along, have fun playing and completely rock out.
Set list: Rockin’ Around (With You), Mary Jane’s Last Dance, You Don’t Know How It Feels, Forgotten Man, You Got Lucky, I Won’t Back Down, Free Fallin’, Walls, Don’t Come Around Here No More, It’s Good to Be King, Crawling Back to You, Wildflowers, Learning to Fly, Yer So Bad, I Should Have Known It, Refugee, Runnin’ Down a Dream
Encore: You Wreck Me, American Girl
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