Hiro11

Tom Petty is one of those guys you initially just sort of take for granted: he's going to produce a few solid tracks on every album.

Then, once you start thinking about, you realize just how terrific and timeless his singles are.

Then you buy Damn the Torpedos and realize that it's easily one of the best straight rock albums of the late seventies/early eighties.

Then you hear "Straight into Darkness", have it hit you like a sledghammer and wonder what else you're missing in his back catalogue.

Then you give up, buy all of his albums and Playback for good measure... at least that's what happened to me.

The guy is a huge star but he's still underappreciated, IMO. He's one of the greats.

xmiyux

Very true and all those albums would be good recommendations. I just think this newest one sounds the most like Wildflowers.

GuessWho

Some pics I took last night...


TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS

Decker

Nice pictures, GuessWho! My five-year-old daughter loves Tom Petty and she really liked those pictures. She asked me to show them to her again and again. She especially likes that last one, but she asked me why wasn't Tom looking at the camera?

I got the album a couple of weeks ago. I like it -- certainly a lot more than his last. Still I think it third of the three solo albums. Also I find myself too distracted by the new Dylan album to get that excited by this one. Considering how many fans the two artists must share, it's surprising the those albums were released only a week apart...

GuessWho

Thanks for the kind words, Decker!!

antennaball

I took some Petty pics last night at ACL, unfortunately they didn't turn out well. I will say that Tom was everything I had hoped for live. His set was rain-delayed 30 minutes but he still played a good two hours.

The songs he played off Highway Companion made up my mind for me to go buy the cd.

cungar

Tom Petty Highway Companion Release Date: July 25, 2006
Bob Dylan Modern Times Release date: August 29, 2006

Decker

Oops, I thought it was a lot closer than that. My bad.

I'd love to see Petty live on this tour, but he's only playing the Vegoose festival and I'm way too old to go to a festival in a stadium. Bummer.

GuessWho, you had to have amazing seats there, huh? I'm jealous.

....Still, I'll always cherish seeing him at the Forum on the Full Moon Fever tour where his encore featured surprise appearances by Bob Dylan AND Bruce Springsteen. Even with lousy seats, that's hard to top

djbrown

Word from backstage at Austin City Limits was that Petty is suffering from the early stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig Disease) and will cut way back on his touring as a result.

Reported on a SportsRadio station in Dallas (albeit one with decent connections with ACL promoters etc..)

Hiro11

Holy shit, is that true? ALS is a particularly heartbreaking disease, let's hope it's not.

GuessWho

3rd row center.

I do PR for the venue, so once in a while I let myself see a show instead of working it.

nazz

Oh man. That's tragic if true. Any other news going around on this?

djbrown

Apparently, the rumors were false. The afternoon show that "broke" the news have since backed off the claim

Spiderbite

http://www.amazon.com/Highway-Compan...1631251&sr=1-1

The special edition of this album with 4 bonus tracks in 10 bucks at Amazon. Had I known Jeff Lynne produced this, I would have bought it years ago.