Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Live at the Fillmore 1997 (Including 4 x CD, 6 x LP Deluxe Sets)

I have that as well. It's a gem since I was at a couple of the shows.

 

I am holding out for a release of a full setlist from the March 6/7, 1980 Odeon show(s).... [Maybe it'll never happen, but I can dream...]

 

Ah, got it. Makes sense!
Although I'm not that interested in that particular track, it's a popular one and probably a good choice to promote the release. What's more interesting to me is whether it'll be the same performance as on An American Treasure.
(Wouldn't be unprecedented to get an alternate performance: A Woman In Love on The Live Anthology was from June 29, 1981; An American Treasure had a performance from the day before.)

 

Thanks for bringing the Rockpalast show to my attention! Somehow I had always favored the Minneapolis show because it's such a great performance. The Rockpalast setlist is different and has quite a few covers that will also be represented in the new Fillmore 97 set: Around And Around, Call Me The Breeze, Lucille, Green Onions, Little Maggie, Gloria, Guitar Boogie Shuffle. Just goes to show how much the '99 shows were modeled after the successful '97 stint! Even the opener Around And Around / Jammin' Me. (BTW: How f***** great is Jammin' Me as an opener on High Grass Dogs and one of the Live Anthology Discs???)

 

So much rumor and innuendo up the chain...Here are the facts:

Originally the series of concerts at The Fillmore in San Francisco, California was going to consist of two separate sprints rather than one long marathon. Tom Petty mentioned to Joel Selvin of the San Francisco Chronicle that the idea for the Fillmore performances came from a benefit concert that the Heartbreakers had performed the previous spring, "Strictly Western Two Steppin' for the Cure" (1996-05-17, Beverly Hills, California). The intimate event inspired Petty to book two blocks of concerts consisting of ten dates at the fabled San Francisco venue with the initial sprint commencing just prior to Thanksgiving of '96 [1996-11-24 - 1996-11-27] with the back end occurring after the new year [1997-01-10 - 1997-01-16]. These dates were announced in the autumn of '96 as Tom Petty/Heartbreakers began to prepare for the engagement. Unfortunately during preparations, Tom "Cobra Kai" Petty happened upon the novel idea of kickboxing as a method of getting in shape for the tour and ended up fracturing his arm which caused the November sprint to be cancelled with those four dates being absorbed onto the back end of the previously scheduled January sprint. As demand for tickets increased, six further dates were tacked onto the schedule taking the run of concerts into the month of February and giving Tom Petty/Heartbreakers fans an incredible twenty-night marathon!

 

I agree about "Psychotic Reaction", it's one of their best covers. My guess is they only did it when Stan Lynch was around to sing it.

 

I've often thought that the covers they did brought out what a great raucous live band they were > rock 'n roll at its very best, pure joy of the medium!

 

@McCool Thanks for sharing your insights with us! Can't remember the story about Tom doing kickboxing and fracturing his arm. Probably wasn't in the two official books on him? Do we know if he continued kickboxing later on?

 

+1

One singer songwriter they loved to cover was JJ Cale. They performed five of his songs and three will be featured on the new set:
- Call Me The Breeze
- Crazy Mama
- I'd Like To Love You Baby

The two others were Thirteen Days, which appears on Angel Dream (Wildflowers outtake) and in live versions during the 400 Days doc (1995) and the Soundstage Concert (2003). Traveling Light was performed in 2012 I think and is only available on audience recordings, but it's worth a listen nonetheless!

 

SHF member wwright seems to be implying it was Campbell. As for the evasiveness of not saying so outright, you'd have to ask him. Elsewhere in this forum, members aren't the least bit shy about describing certain musicians (such as Van Morrison for example) as being almost permanently grumpy.

By the way, when I met Van Morrison, he was anything BUT grumpy! I wouldn't say he was friendly, but he was as nice as you could want him to be, signing the album I'd brought TWICE in ten minutes (after the first pen ran out of ink and stopped working, and I had to scramble to borrow another pen so he could sign again) AND giving me permission to go backstage to get an autograph from David Hayes, his bass player. So for me, Van Morrison = not grumpy at all! YMMV.

 

I am personally hoping that all or at least most of the tracks on this set are previously unreleased. I don't see the point in re-releasing live tracks when there are so many performances of most of these songs to choose from. Not to mention other songs that could be used instead of ones they've released before.

Would be very glorious to own two full 4CD sets of live petty with no repeats.

 

Campbell often looks pissed off if he isn't smiling. That's just his face. I think the poster doesn't want to say it outright because there's official TPATH folks here.

 

I just always thought Mike looked serious when he’s not smiling, and he was deep in thought or in the music.

 

Mike has long been an advocate of changing set lists and seemed to love the Filmore run, I have heard rumors of Scott T being a bit grump and he was who I would imagine might not have been thrilled to spend a month a few hours from home but I can only guess.

 

Scott T and Tom were really close, so I can’t imagine he’d stay a grump for too long, and if he did, Duckhead could get through to Tom a lot of the time.

One thing occurred to me: the Fillmore run started on Scott’s 45th birthday, and ran through Mike’s 47th. Maybe they were both grumpy on their respective birthdays about the thought, stress, depression and anxiety of not being home with their families to celebrate?

 

I've checked setlist.fm. Provided that the setlists are correct and the recordings from January 31st until February 7th are complete, they should have at least one alternate performance in the archives for every song from the stint they have already released before.
That being said, I can see them releasing the familiar versions again if they are the best performances. They did the same with "Drivin' Down To Georgia" and "You Wreck Me" from the Wildflowers live disc. The difference being that those came from fan club exclusive releases, IIRC.

It's interesting that some of the performances from the shows that were aired live on the radio appeared years later on The Live Anthology. This is a (not quite complete) list of the songs / partial shows that were broadcast:

• Time Is On My Side (Jan. 31)
• Goldfinger (Jan. 31) (Live Anthology)
• Listen To Her Heart (Jan. 31)
• Cabin Down Below (Feb. 1)
• Diddy Wah Diddy (Feb. 1) (Live Anthology)
• On The Street (Feb. 1)
• I Want You Back Again (Feb. 1) (version on Live Anthology is from Feb. 7)
• Crazy Mama (Feb. 4)
• Call Me The Breeze (Feb. 4)
• Honey Bee (Feb. 6)
• I Won’t Back Down (Feb. 6) (version on American Treasure is from Feb. 4)

The show from February 7th, which was broadcast in full, provided "Jammmin' Me" and "I Want You Back Again".

 

So stoked for this release. I'll probably get the vinyl but it's great to know that the CD is likely to be well mastered. So refreshing to see mastering engineers listening to us music fans that buy this music. I realize the majority of people that purchase these releases don't care that much about sound quality. But for those of us with the passion, it's great to see Tom Petty's releases giving so much care. Every vinyl re-issue and issue I have from TP is top notch and a model of how it should be done.

 

Also anyone know if Chris Bellman is cutting the vinyl?

 

Completely agree. I picked up both The Last DJ and Highway Companion on vinyl this week and really enjoyed the vinyl versions over the CDs.

 

Yes you can. The $175 price tag for the whole set is much better than spending the rest of your life wishing you had those 3 bonus LP's. Pick up an extra shift. Don't go out to dinner once. It's worth it.

 

About a year ago or so when Highway Companion was briefly out of print you couldn't find it for less that $65 or so. Right now you can get it on Amazon for 18 bucks. It's a real grower. Crept into my top 5 Petty albums.

Can't wait to hear the 97 shows and all the covers.

 

I so agree! Highway Companion is very underrated. And it sounds great on vinyl, cut by Chris Bellman.

 

Yes, the "Tom Petty Rock Blocks" as they were known at the time. During the run of shows commencing on 1997-01-31 and concluding on 1997-02-06, at 9 pm (PT), Westwood One would be allowed to drop in for three songs which they would broadcast to their audience. This was always an interesting part of the proceedings as given that the drop-ins would occur at the same time each evening, the band was cognizant of the fact that for that particular block they would not feature the same performances from the previous evening in order to provide the widest selection possible. Of note, "Friend Of The Devil" as performed on 1997-02-03 received it's sole electric arrangement of the run. As it pertains to what was broadcast each evening, I'm fairly certain that what I've posted up below is accurate although it has been twenty-five years so please permit for a margin of error. If you are using a setlist generator as a point of reference, I do believe the drop-ins occurred within the first ten selections performed each evening and never exceeded the tenth selection listed on the set.

[1997-01-31 Rock Block]
1-1 Time Is On My Side
1-2 Goldfinger
1-3 Listen To Her Heart

[1997-02-01 Rock Block]
1-1 Diddy Wah Diddy
1-2 On The Street
1-3 I Want You Back Again

[1997-02-03 Rock Block]
1-1 Friend Of The Devil
1-2 Listen To Her Heart
1-3 Goldfinger

[1997-02-04 Rock Block]
1-1 Crazy Mama
1-2 Call Me The Breeze
1-3 Ain't No Sunshine

[1997-02-06 Rock Block]
1-1 Honey Bee
1-2 I Won't Back Down
1-3 Waitin' In School

 

OK Then my recollection was totally off! Perhaps it was just those last few shows that got added on very short notice then. Obviously those beginning shows went on sale 2+ months in advance.

As far as band members being "grumpy" and/or visibly unhappy on stage - that can sometimes translate into a great performance. A pissed off musician sometimes channels that emotion into the music itself.

 

Thanks for the clarity on the subject! Chalk up my "misinformation" to poor recollection of events from 25+ years ago...