FANS ARE NOW RATING THE SHOWS AS WELL

1-5

5 BEING THE BEST

Rated "5" by Michele Jackson

I just got back from the TP show at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. I knew there was an opening act, so when the ticket said show time was 7:15 p.m., I didn’t expect to see the main attraction then, but was still surprised when Petty’s band didn’t take the stage until after 9:00 p.m.

By then I was doing more than humming, “I don’t know how long I can go on, ‘cause you’re making me wait and you’re leading me on . . .”

While I like music, I wouldn’t call myself a music lover. With Fleetwood Mac, I think my interest is more like a career than anything else – well, at least I HOPE to someday feel as devoted to my job. Anyway, I felt that I was approaching the Petty show almost as a scout for FM. When things worked, rather than being passionately impressed, I just wanted to take notes and thought, “gee I with MY band would do that!”

The first tip that I’d like FM to steal from Petty is the arc of panoramic screens that swept across the stage. They often displayed 5 or more images at once, really transmitting the feeling that you were watching a live band. You saw several different camera angles and performers at a time. With FM, except for one song which displayed an image of Stevie on the left and one of Lindsey on the right, most of the time the screens at the FM show all had the same visual. They showed a static fraction of what was happening on the stage, while TP’s dynamic screens enhanced the energetic feel of what the band was doing, showing all of the different movements simultaneously. Without being busy or distracting, the screens made you see more of the action, not less.

Petty came on wearing a red shirt, scarf and suede jacket with fringes. I wanted to borrow his coat! Although I was wearing my University of Michigan sweats, it takes more than the Wolverine spirit to keep a person warm at night, in a greek theater – in late September.

At one point, when Petty asked them to turn up the house lights, I thought it was time for the band intros and I started craning my neck for Stevie, but I had to wait two more songs for her.

The audience seemed to embrace “Oh Well,” very well. Tom Petty described Mike Campbell as his “co-captain” and you could really appreciate that tonight. So, this guy is more than just a some time co-writer for Stevie, eh? Who’d have thunk it! After Petty finished the lyrics, Campbell was the one showcased for “Oh Well,” as Petty just ran around shaking maracas.

Petty mentioned that last night he said Stevie was the only honorary Heartbreaker. I could see her golden hair bobbing in the shadows, as she emerged from the wings to my right, a smile beaming on her face. She was dressed in black boots, skirt, fitted peplum jacket, with a feather boa color. She wore long leather gloves. You couldn’t see an inch of her skin until you got all the way up the chin.

For the first time, SDMHA seemed to have some of the force I first heard on the studio single nearly 25 years ago. I have the video with Petty and Stevie singing it, but for me it never captured the fury of the song. Those old vocals seemed angry, demanding that the heart dragging stop, until you got to the end, when the order became a plea. It was as if the singers gradually realized that love had rendered them helpless. They weren’t in a position to demand anymore. At first they were fierce, but as the song faded out, they were asking, begging, stop dragging my heart around. Well, Tom and Stevie live didn’t convey the pathos that I once imagined I heard in the song, but they were certainly spirited, with Stevie sending several high kicks in Tom’s direction, to accentuate the vocals.

During the musical break, both Tom and Stevie stepped back from their mics at the same time, taking an identical number of steps back as they smiled at each other. Nice synchronicity.

The audience seemed to appreciate Stevie’s INTK as much as they had any of Tom’s songs. When she left the stage, Tom assured us that she would be back later. She BETTER be.

For “Insider”Tom said that it was a song he wrote for Stevie, which they hardly ever perform, because Stevie’s never around. But since she’s here tonight . . . Stevie came back out with a long, salmon-colored shawl over her black. Her harmonies were clear and strong but eerily quiet, evoking the quiet heartbreak of unrequited love. I’m the one you couldn’t trust. When she got to the line, “I bet she’s your masterpiece . . .” she turned her back to the audience and looked directly at Tom, one hand folded behind her back. Tom clasped both of her hands, before she walked off the stage.

After the song, she moved over to the side of the stage to sing background on “Learning to Fly.” She mouthed some of the words and did her familiar hand gestures in time to the music, including wagging her glove-clad fingers . Now, TIP #2 that I would like FM to steal: use your audience as background singer. People sing along WITH Stevie during Landslide, but FM should let the audience sing one part while they sing another, as Tom did tonight. While the crowd crooned that learning to fly is the hardest part, Tom was singing lead, not with the audience, but interjecting words after and in between theirs. It really worked nicely. He did this to a lesser extent on other tunes. So, it wasn’t a “singalong” so much as it was a vocal arrangement involving the whole theater.

Tip # 3 for FM to steal is the strobe light. I know it sounds dated, a blast from the psychedelic past, but good heavens, when you have Stevie with her tambo, flying hair and twirling fringes dancing under a strobe light, that’s about as good as it gets. It was like watching a film on fast forward, with a few of the frames taken out, making it seem like she was moving at the speed of light. She did it on the apron edge of the stage, becoming the focus of attention. The crowd roared and when the strobe stopped, she ran off stage into the blackness.

She was back for American Girl, in her spandex pants, hat and feather boa. There was something intimate about the way she danced up to her mic to sing, “make it last all night” in unison with Tom, then danced into the background again.

She hugged all the band members, but when they formed a line to take their bows, they pushed her into place next to Tom and they all serenaded the audience together. Then it was over.

They didn't do Walls. I thought that was in the setlist. That was somewhat of a disappointment for me.

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