Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers 40th Anniversary Tour – April 22nd – American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX
A special feeling was in the air – As only night #2 on Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 40th Anniversary Tour celebrating four decades of timeless hits that were about to be played to one of the most appreciative crowds I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve always felt the crowd can equally make a show, no matter how good the band is, I love it when the band is right there with it.
“Hope you paid the babysitter well, ‘cause it’s gonna be a long night!”
Petty smiled widely & the sold out roared in response. This came after the one-two punch of opener Rockin’ Around (With You) from their first LP to 90’s inescapable Mary Jane’s Last Dance to illustrate the multitude of hits across as many decades.
The cheers were certainly not lost on Petty as he seemed almost stunned by the reaction & voiced his appreciation at every opportunity with sincere, clearly moved gratitude.
He also did this really cool thing, where he had an old fashioned giant trunk, that he used as a prop.
Inside were all the immediately identifiable hats that Petty as worn over the years so are instaneously linked to the music of the period so this trunk served as time machine taking you back over the past 40 years as he would reach into the trunk & remove a hat & you instantly knew what was coming.
A fantastic rawking affair that just had unforgettable written all over it. The band & crowd enjoyed a momentum that lasted all the way throughout the encore implying the insatiable crowd would have been fine if they played all night.
Setlist –
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
Time to Move On
Wildflowers
Learning to Fly
Yer So Bad
I Should Have Known It
Refugee
Runnin’ Down a Dream
Encore:
You Wreck Me
American Girl
Joe Walsh and company opened the festivities highlighted by a moving cover of The Eagles’ Take It To The Limit dedicated to Walsh’s bandmate, the late Glenn Frey. Walsh is such a badass & could have easily filled this building on his own so having the both him & Petty as a one-two punch made the night just that much more special.
I personally have been on a bit of Walsh tear as of late. While I’m admittedly not the being Eagles consumer, I’ve always loved Joe & his swagger mixed with friendly face & fiery guitar just frames something I really can’t seem to get enough of. I was invited to his pre-tour Vegas residency back in January that mark some of the best shows I’ve ever seen by anyone. So much so that a little over a week while the Petty tour was having a day off, Walsh was doing his own headliner gig and I just couldn’t resist.
Joe Walsh – January 18th – Mandalay Bay – House of Blues – Las Vegas
This was night #4 of a six night residency over a ten day period & the first show in 4 days.
Joe Walsh is one of the great gunslingers of any time & proceeded to treat us all to some straight up lawlessness that made the next two hours seem like hanging out with an old friend.
From the opening James Gang number Walk Away longtime fans got the nod with Help Me Through the Night, & that was just the beginning of a night of music that inspired that anything was possible.
He talked about everything from these six House of Blues shows through Jan. 21 to the year just ended (“I didn’t like that so much”) to the one just starting (“The first 100 days are gonna be a hoot”). The title track to his 2012 album Analog Man gave Walsh to put the current insufferable concert ettiquette of playing to a wall of cell phones on blast: “You can have your iPhone pointed at me, and put it on the internet. Or, you can just look up.”
Solo albums and the James Gang mean Walsh relies less on his work with the Eagles but he performed Take It to the Limit & dedicated to the late Glenn Frey appropriately as today was the one year anniversary of his sudden death last year.
Heater served up Life in the Fast Lane which he co-wrote with Frey and Don Henley, after mock protest that it’s “a real pain in the ass to play.”
As he hit the homestretch with his signature Life’s Been Good, the giant rear screen showed us snapshots of the singer-guitarist with rock’s upper tier of royalty: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Keith Richards and Ron Wood, Pete Townshend, Bruce Springsteen … the list goes on.
And then he played Rocky Mountain Way to send us home. A longtime friend indeed.
Setlist –
Walk Away (James Gang song)
Ordinary Average Guy
A Life of Illusion
The Confessor
Rosewood Bitters
Analog Man
Take It to the Limit (Eagles song)
One Day at a Time
Mother Says
The Bomber: Closet Queen/Bolero/Cast Your Fate to the Wind (James Gang song)
Turn to Stone
Help Me Through the Night (James Gang)
Life in the Fast Lane (Eagles song)
In the City
Funk #49 (James Gang song)
Life’s Been Good
Encore:
Rocky Mountain Way
Scott Ian (DJ set) – January 21st – Circle Bar at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino – Las Vegas
One of the fun things about Vegas is the random people, performers, celebrities you run into that are either here on business or just to have fun like you. After being at this hotel all week covering the shows your reading about as well as the AVN Expo & performing as a DJ myself it was fun to see Scott Ian of Anthrax play some tunes for a special DJ set as part of the Circle Bar celebrity DJ series. The AVN Awards held at the Joint inside the casino had just let out so when you exit to enter the casino this is the first thing you see so this was also a bit of an unofficial after-party.
Every major working porn star & rock royalty spinning tunes, what more could you ask for? Only in Vegas.
Joe Walsh – April 30th – Winstar World Casino – Thackerville, Oklahoma
Joe Walsh is a legend and, once again, proved why he has earned that distinction. His performance was flawless and highly entertaining, just as it has been for decades. His witty sense of humor and appreciation for his faithful fans always adds to the great experience of sharing a couple of hours with him.
Walsh had all of the babyboomers out of their seats and rockin for 90 minutes straight. A true entertainer with his small talk between songs and jokes about growing older and the intrusion/confusion of the internet era. Great energy from the stage and the audience. Everything from the Eagles, James Gang and just enough of a smattering of his new stuff. Didn’t want it to end.
Setlist –
Meadows
Ordinary Average Guy
A Life of Illusion
Everyday People (Sly & The Family Stone cover)
Analog Man
Take It to the Limit (Eagles song)
The Bomber: Closet Queen/Bolero/Cast Your Fate to the Wind (James Gang song)
Turn to Stone
In the City
Funk #49 (James Gang song)
Life in the Fast Lane (Eagles song)
Life’s Been Good
Rocky Mountain Way
