What to expect at Petty’s concert
When Tom Petty returns to his native Florida, it’s always a big homecoming.
So, what can you expect from his show Friday night at Perfect Vodka Amphitheatre? Here’s a hint from his late April show in Atlanta:
He’s looking back: The concert started with the first song from the first Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album — “Rockin’ Around (With You)” – and ended with the last song from that selftitled album, the thumping pool hall classic, “American Girl.”
At age 66, he’s not slowing down: The show lasts more than two hours.
Fans will hear plenty of favorites: “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “You Got Lucky,” “Refugee” and some solo Petty: “Walls” and “Wildflowers”.
What a double bill: Joe Walsh opens the show doing James Gang (“Funk #49”) and solo favorites (“Life’s Been Good.”) But the crowd roared its loudest when he dedicated a song to his friend and former Eagles bandmate, Glenn Frey, and unfurled a passionate “Take it to the Limit.”
Some albums explode. Others stall. “Sea of Noise,” the sophomore album of Birmingham, Alabama’s St. Paul and the Broken Bones, is making “a slow burn,” says bass player Jesse Phillips. And he’ll take it. “It’s doing well,” says Phillips, whose soulful band plays SunFest’s final day on Sunday. “The way that people consume music is changing really quickly. It’s hard to tell what kind of metrics to even measure the success of an album by. But more people are coming to shows and knowing all the words. We had a great big European tour in January and we really started to notice that between 800 and 1,500 people were coming to every show, and half of them were singing along. They were clearly consuming it somehow.”
Once you’ve heard St. Paul and the Broken Bones, you’ll understand that growing consumption. Led by honey-throated singer Paul Janeway, they’re a modern outfit with a vintage soul sound that evokes the late-night promises of Otis Redding and Al Green imbued with their own inventiveness and the sensibilities of the electronic age.
“We’re always prett y aware of the power of the Internet. It’s always felt like a benefit,” Phillips says. “We never sold music in the era where even mid-level bands had gold records cropping up every couple of weeks.”
What they’ve learned, he says, is that in this era, differentiating yourself from all the other acts coming across to fans on CD or download means getting out on the road. And that philosophy was confirmed by someone who knows what he’s talking about.
“I’m not one to do name-dropping, but a couple of years ago, we were in San Francisco, and our manager, Traci Thomas, said ‘I want you to meet somebody’ and she just casually said ‘His name is John,’” he remembers. “I realized it was John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin. I was talking to him for a little, and it was one of the cooler conversations I’ve had. This man has been a rock star his entire life. He said ‘It’s crazy how much things have changed. We used to just go out and tour to promote the album. The album was the thing. But now you’re making an album to promote the tour. You’re really smart to tour.’”
The album they’re promoting, “Sea of Noise,” is a slight departure from their debut, “Half The City,” not only in being less literal in its classic soul take, but
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