Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ ‘Live at the Fillmore – 1997’ Documents Transformative Occasion (ALBUM REVIEW)

Recorded over the course of six nights at the end of a twenty-date stand, the roughly four hours of performances that comprise Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Live at the Fillmore – 1997 document a transformative occasion for the group. Of the fifty-eight selections on the four compact discs, thirty-five are covers, the expanse of which allowed Petty and company to not only test their mettle as a band but rediscover the pleasure inherent in playing together

When performing live over the course of their forty-year-plus career, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers made a habit of integrating outside material with their own best-known songs. Indeed, the band’s first official concert album, 1985’s Pack Up the Plantation: Live! featured the Byrds’ “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star“ and the Searchers’” Needles and Pins,” each tune’s direct stylistic reference points for TPHB. In addition, Van Morrison’s “Mystic Eyes” and early Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” often distinguished their concerts well into the 2000s. 

Perhaps it was the audience response to those very inclusions that led them to concentrate on the lesser gems of their discography plus the songs of others when they conducted their now twenty-five-plus-year-old run in San Francisco. But it’d be remiss to overlook the pleasure the band takes in playing everything from oddities like “Heartbreakers Beach Party” (in impromptu response to an audience request) to loving and pithy takes on Booker T. & the M.G.’s “Hip Hugger.” 

It’s not quite fair or accurate to say Petty and the Heartbreakers sound like a different band playing such numbers. Caricatured though the band may be on Tom Garner’s eye-opening orange-themed cover art of this box, they are fully in their element at such moments, poised and prepared. And there is a certain unusually energetic air about renditions such as this one of Little Richard’s “Lucille” as well as what might seem out-of-character choices, like Bill Withers’ pop/soul nugget “Ain’t No Sunshine.” But if these shows proved anything over and above the professionalism and polish of the sextet, it is that, to a man, they are passionate music lovers as well as skilled musicians. 

Over and above that realization, however, cuts like “Shakin’ All Over” illustrate how Petty and the Heartbreakers are individually and collectively rediscovering themselves as players and singers as they move out of their shared comfort zone. Even when the ensemble is sharing the stage, they transcend mere showmanship to depict their recommitment to the roots of their music. 

For instance, Tom and the group accompany Byrds co-founder Roger McGuinn on a couple of country-oriented numbers from that iconic unit’s discography, Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man,” in addition to a pair of numbers the late Gene Clark co-wrote for the iconic American band–”It Won’t Be Wrong” and “8 Miles High.”

When backing blues icon John Lee Hooker on “Serves You Right To Suffer” and “Boogie Chillen,” Petty and company work in the same intrinsically disciplined but joyously abandoned fashion. Such homage to influences is the ultimate of a piece with re-arrangements of the group’s own material; this subdued take of “I Won’t Back Down” is the personal statement of an individual rather than an anthem. 

The six-men unit generally proffers the setlist in largely tight, structured arrangements–see their tributes to Bo Diddley via  “Diddy Wah Diddy” and to the Rolling Stones’ via “It’s All Over Now.” Yet their restraint only renders more impressive their strengths when stretching out in unexpected ways, as on this eleven minutes-plus of “It’s Good To Be King;” expanding upon those aforementioned virtues in moments of spontaneity is the definition of chemistry in action, repeatedly writ large on the Fillmore stage.

 The unity is as vividly in evidence in the fluent basslines of Howie Epstein as he locks into the emphatic drumming of Steve Ferrone as in the mesh of Mike Campbell’s electric guitar flourishes with those of keyboardist Benmont Tench. Economy takes precedence and, without demeaning the charisma of a bandleader delighted to be at the forefront of such savvy expertise, the sextet redefines the concept of a whole being greater than the sum of its parts. 

After concentrating on outside songs, including obvious roots touch points such as Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and Chuck Berry’s “Around And Around,” Petty and company return to originals like “Angel Dream” with a zest that only comes from the rediscovery of the innate worth of their own work. And the pride the group exudes on “Walls” is equal to and perhaps greater than that which they radiate knowing they nailed the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.” 

Live at the Fillmore – 1997 is a most logical extension of the previously-issued posthumous Tom Petty reissues of recent years such as An American Treasure. But because this Deluxe Edition effects a similarly seamless continuity, it’s also naturally and directly tied to a four-CD collection from 2009 titled The Live Anthology. 

In the scrupulous attention to detail applied by the producers–principal among whom are long-time TP sound guru Ryan Ulyate and kindred spirit Campbell, aided by Tench and members of the Petty family–this team insured both the contents and the packaging of this set evince the same loving attention as the music as it was performed. 

Journalist Joel Selvin’s essay in the thirty-two-page booklet is curiously jumbled and repetitious, but it somehow achieves the same end as the enclosed tchotchkes that might otherwise seem kitschy: an embroidered patch, replica guitar picks and a laminate broaden the inclusive nature of the event as it happenedBecause the contents of Live at the Fillmore – 1997 will almost as often surprise (”Goldfinger”) as satiate (”Mary Jane’s Last Dance”), hearing it evokes the myriad sensation(s) of the most memorable concert experience.

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