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Which Tom Petty Songs?


unichord

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If you've got a large number of potheads in the audience, do "You don't know how it feels". I used to do that one "acoustic solo" and once in awhile segue it with "Joker" by Steve Miller. Between references to rolling joints and midnight tokers, the potheads ate it up (in between mouthfuls of Doritos, of course).

 

I now do "American Girl", "Higher Place" (off "Wildflowers") and "Listen to Her Heart" acoustically on a 12 string.

 

Funny story about "Breakdown". I went and saw Petty a couple years ago at our local large outdoor venue. When he did "Breakdown"...he only sang "It's alright if you love me". Then he shut up.

 

The audience sang the rest of the song, all 10,000 or so. It was cool ;)

 

Oh yeah, we used to do "The Waiting" and "Free Falling". It helps to have a Ric 12 string on "The Waiting".

 

Oh yeah...one of my fave rave bar-doable Petty songs is "I Won't Back Down"

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Originally posted by Tedster

Funny story about "Breakdown". I went and saw Petty a couple years ago at our local large outdoor venue. When he did "Breakdown"...he only sang "It's alright if you love me". Then he shut up.


The audience sang the rest of the song, all 10,000 or so. It was cool
;)

 

Exactly. I saw him a couple weeks ago. Great show!!!!!!

 

Three things stand out in my mind

 

1 - The audience was mostly in their 20's ----I'm used to seeing the "older" artists fill arenas with much older crowds. Sooo...Tom Petty is still winning audiences for more than "nostalgia" value.

 

2 - It was by far the biggest crowd I've seen in a LONG time for anybody....Including Stones, McCartney and others that I (previously) thought would be the top drawing artists. Petty equaled or eclipsed them - and as I mentioned - with a much younger audience.

 

3 - The whole place knew every word to every song. Amazing!!! At times the audience singing drowned out the stage.

 

I walked outta there thinking we GOTTA do some Petty.

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Originally posted by RupertB

Most of the outfits I've played with have made an effort to pick good tunes that didn't get a ton of radio play, so we play:


American Girl

Listen to Her Heart

I Need to Know

Wildflowers (acoustic).

 

 

tHaT rOcKZ!!!!

 

I dig your methodology, and your tunes. "Wildflowers" is a great song, as are the rest...

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apparently I sound kinda like tom petty at times when i sing

:)

 

we do kings highway at the start of our 1st set because it's easy enough to get into and get comfortable with.

 

I'd love to do american girl but it's juuuuuuust out of my range and free fallin is way out of my range.

 

we used to do wont back down and into the great wide open, might bring one of them back.

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Originally posted by Tedster



tHaT rOcKZ!!!!


I dig your methodology, and your tunes. "Wildflowers" is a great song, as are the rest...

 

 

Thanks man. It works for us. The downside is that occasionally we'll get excited to learn a new tune we heard on the radio & a month later its completly worn out from radio over-play and no one wants to play it. "How Far is Heaven" is a recent example.

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Originally posted by unichord



Exactly. I saw him a couple weeks ago. Great show!!!!!!


Three things stand out in my mind


1 - The audience was mostly in their 20's ----I'm used to seeing the "older" artists fill arenas with much older crowds. Sooo...Tom Petty is still winning audiences for more than "nostalgia" value.


2 - It was by far the biggest crowd I've seen in a LONG time for anybody....Including Stones, McCartney and others that I (previously) thought would be the top drawing artists. Petty equaled or eclipsed them - and as I mentioned - with a much younger audience.


3 - The whole place knew every word to every song. Amazing!!! At times the audience singing drowned out the stage.


I walked outta there thinking we GOTTA do some Petty.

 

Coolness. I've probably (OK, definitely :D) seen Petty and the Heartbreakers more times than I've seen any other band, because a couple of the Heartbreakers are old friends of mine from back when I lived in L.A. and I saw them at some small club gigs before they were "famous." They were always just a fantastic live band and had great songs. When it came to how to put on a consistently great show, how to pace the set, get the crowd into it, etc. those guys put on a clinic. They're all fantastic musicians too. I became a huge fan and learned a lot from them about how to make a band work.

 

In the early days I also really dug them because they refused to follow any current trends. Everybody was into punk, metal and disco and the Heartbreakers were just kind of this "classic rock'n'roll band" before that term had even been invented, let alone considered "hip" or marketable. They were thought of as throwbacks to the 60's and they didn't care. They just carried on doing the music they loved and did it really, really well, and people took notice. Still do I guess.

 

I haven't been as into them since the "Jeff Lynne period" and the subsequent departure of original drummer Stan Lynch, who is still a friend and one of my favorite drummers ever. But I did see them a couple of years ago when they came through here and they were still great... just not as great as they used to be. Yeah, I got spoiled. :D

 

But anyway. Hard to go wrong covering a Petty song. "The Waiting" is my personal favorite but there's so much great stuff on all the first 5 albums.

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Anything that's Rock and Roll's Fine

 

Listen To Her Heart

 

Magnolia

 

 

 

I love the first 2 albums the most.

 

Please don't do Breakdown. It's a great song but it's been covered to death. Even TP doesn't want to sing it anymore, he let's the audience do it.:)

 

 

Some friends of mine and me stayed up all through the night

Rockin' pretty steady til l the sky went light

And I didn't go to bed, didn't go to work

I picked up the telephone, told the boss he was a jerk

 

So come baby, let's go, don't you hear the rock n' roll

Playin' on the radio sounds so right

Girl you better grab hold, everybody's gotta know

Anything that' s rock n' roll fine

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Originally posted by TheAtomicJeff

If I had it my way:


Too much ain't enough.

I need to know.

Listen to her heart.

Restless.

 

Two thumbs up. :) That second album is great ain't it? Funny thing is when it came out, no one seemed to like it. It wasn't actually mixed very well so it didn't sound that great on first release... subsequent re-releases have been much better so maybe now more people are figuring out what a great record that was.

 

My band covers "When the Time Comes" sometimes actually... another killer song on that record.

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Originally posted by Lee Flier

Two thumbs up.
:)
That second album is great ain't it? Funny thing is when it came out, no one seemed to like it.

I love it. I was fortunate enough to have seen that tour. Older TP is really good. I liked his songwriting much better back then. After the Traveling Wilburys it seems he got a little too much Jeff Lynne/Bob Dylan influence in him.

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