The last time Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers toured — summer of 2006 — he had a three-pronged promotional attack: Support the new album, “Highway Companion”; celebrate 30 years of the Heartbreakers; and put enough material in the show to make it worthwhile for Stevie Nicks to tag along.
This summer, Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Ron Blair and Steve Farrone are on an album-free tour that on opening night meant the jettisoning of 10 tunes that made it into most of the ’06 shows. Petty has long kept the Heartbreaker set lists compact as nearly every city gets the same show as the last; back in ’89, he was even rumored to have laminated the set list.
Petty told Rolling Stone he intends to shake up the set list a bit more on this tour, one of the band’s shortest at three months, and jam with opening act Steve Winwood on occasion. (The first two nights of the tour, though, featured the same songs). Winwood, on opening night of the tour in Grand Rapids, Mich., played cuts from his new album “Nine Lives” as well as "I'm a Man," "Gimme Some Lovin'," "Dear Mr. Fantasy," "Can't Find My Way Home" and "Higher Love."
Obscurities currently in the set are “Sweet William,” an “Echo”-era tune that was on the “Room at the Top” single; the Traveling Wilburys track “End of the Line”; the wonderful "Saving Grace" written for the film "Elizabethtown"; and two cuts from the “Wildflowers” album, “Honey Bee” and “Cabin Down Below.”
On Friday night at Grand Rapids' Van Andel Arena, Petty and the Heartbreakers performed:

You Wreck Me / Mary Jane / I Won't Back Down / Even The Losers / Free Fallin' / Cabin Down Below / Sweet William / End Of The Line / The Waiting / Saving Grace / Honey Bee / Face In The Crowd / Learning To Fly / Don't Come Round Here No More / Refugee / Running Down A Dream / American Girl

Absence can be a tricky gambit in music, one taken in the past week by Portishead, Tom Petty’s first significant band and Steve Winwood. All three released impressive albums on April 29 with different attitudes toward past lives: Winwood is reconciling ‘70s and ‘80s personae; Mudcrutch reflects Petty’s take on a 1971-72 milieu; and Portishead discards its own history to create a take on the Nico-Dagmar Krause aesthetic with abundant industrial textures.
Portishead’s “Third,” the Brit trio’s first album in more than 10 years, is not only the most daring of the three, it may well be the most adventurous major label release of the year. Thematically dramatic and dark, with the enthralling Beth Gibbons singing about self-doubt and romance with an overriding sense of vulnerability, Portishead leaves its past in the dust. “Third” is a reinvention of a band, a second phase that occurred organically and was not forced to happen as the first phase lost artistic  or commercial currency.
That dilemma reached up and bit Winwood after his 1982-1990 reinvention as a purveyor of contemporary British blue-eyed soul and, whether planned or not, made his albums few and far between: “Nine Lives” is only his third album in 17 years, but the first to honestly connect Spencer Davis Group and Traffic with the more polished solo artist.
Winwood returned to his spot behind the keyboard after the release of 1997’s “Junction Seven.” Six years later, when String Cheese Incident’s label released his “About Time” album, which Sony later picked up, Winwood was positioned as a patriarch of the jam band scene. His handful of recent shows with Eric Clapton reconnected with the initial incarnation of the jam band universe, Blind Faith, again raising hope that Winwood connect the dots between past and present.
“Nine Lives” could use a little more organ and a couple of sax solos veer too close to smooth jazz, but otherwise the collection is full of smart, potent and forcefully delivered tracks. The presence of Clapton as a soloist suggests that relationship has the ability to still bear fruit and as white-boy funk goes, Winwood remains a master. Released by Columbia, it is a far better sounding record and more focused effort than “About Time,” the result of time and money.
Those two attributes are in evidence on the debut album of “Mudcrutch,” recorded in 10 days about 32 years after the band broke up. Mudcrutch features Heartbreakers Petty on bass, Mike Campbell on guitar and Benmont Tench on keyboards along with Tom Leadon on guitar and Randall Marsh on drums. They recorded a single for Asylum after moving to L.A. from Gainesville, Fla., that went nowhere; the band never got to release its version of “Don’t Do Me Like That.”
Beyond a reunion, Mudcrutch gave Petty a chance to experiment with doing things the old-fashioned way – write tunes in a hurry, record songs in a single take and do everything live. The procedure yielded a nine-minute Allmans-esque jam, Crystal River, about a half-dozen twists on the Flying Burrito Brothers including the bluegrass-inspired flatpicking on “June Apple” and a pop tune, “Oh Maria,” that could be part of the Heartbreakers’ arsenal.
Live, Mudcrutch and Portishead re-produced their records. Mudcrutch, at the Troubadour, was a tight country-rock band with a few fun covers (Dylan, the Killer), while Portishead was impressive in each individual performance but has yet to figure out a way to smoothly segue from their past to their present. Winwood will be opening shows this summer for Petty & the Heartbreakers; it may well be the season’s most interesting rock timeline on display.
Of the three albums, Portishead is the likely top-seller with predictions hovering around 50,000. Mudcrutch should do about half of that.

Since the last post, I have attended four concerts and seen 28 acts leaving me with 72 concerts and 184 acts to go on the path to 100/300.
On the stereo:
Car: Daniella Cotton “Rock N Soul”; Esperanza Spalding; Cinematic Orchestra “Live at the Royal Albert Hall”; Duffy “Rockferry”; Scarlett Johansson “Anywhere I Lay My Head”; Hayes Carll “Trouble in Mind”
Home: Jacob Young “Sideways”; Raconteurs “Consolers of the Lonely”; David Grisman Quintet “DGQ-20” (disc 2); Steve Miller Band box set (disc 2); Billy Bragg “Mr. Love & Justice”

Mudcrutch, the country-rock band bassist-singer Tom Petty and lead guitarist Mike Campbell brought to L.A. from Gainesville, Fla., almost 35 years ago, is celebrating its reunion with a string of six shows at West Hollywood's Troubadour. Back then they released all of one single.
Now, with Heartbreaker Benmont Tench along for the ride with drummer Randall Marsh and guitarist-singer Tom Leadon, their songbook includes 10 originals, a couple of adaptations of traditional tunes and covers of tunes by Bob Dyan, Bill Monroe, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roger McGuinn and Eddie Cochran. None of the early Mudcrutch tunes, which include "Don't Do Me Like That," made it into Monday's set.
Thirty three years after they broke up - and the day before their debut was released by Reprise - Mudcrutch performed:
Shady Grove / Orphan of the Storm / Six Days on the Road / Scare Easy / Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) / This is a Good Street / Lover of the Bayou / Queen of the Go-Go Girls / Oh Maria / Summertime Blues / June Apple / House of Stone / Love Please Come Home / Crystal River / The Wrong Thing to Do / Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 / High School Confidential

Tom Petty has reunited  his first band for an album to be released by Reprise on April 12 and followed by a California tour that will include four dates at the Troubadour.
Mudcrutch, the band Petty formed in Gainesville, Fla., with future Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench,  released only one single - "Depot Street" b/w  "Wild Eyes" on Shelter Records - and never recorded a full album's worth of material.
The band,  Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh formed the rhythm section, became popular performing at a series of festivals they  hosted at  Mudcrutch Farm, which eventually were closed down by authorities.
Each person who orders tickets to the April Mudcrutch concerts will receive six downloadable tracks from the upcoming album before the start of  the tour.
APRIL TOUR DATES:
12- Benefit for The Midnight Mission at Malibu PAC, Malibu, CA
14- Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
16, 17 - Fillmore, San Francisco
19- Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara
20- Ventura Theater
22- Concerts in The Park, Alpine
25, 26, 28, 29- Troubadour, West Hollywood

There are plenty of U.S. music festivals to choose from this summer, and now Canada has entered the fray with the inaugural Pemberton Festival, which is set for July 25-27 in Pemberton, B.C. (roughly two hours from Vancouver). The scheduled headliners are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Jay-Z, Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay.

The rest of the line-up is well-rounded: My Morning Jacket, the Tragically Hip, Interpol, Metric, Buck 65, Black Mountain, Flaming Lips, Death Cab For Cutie, Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Sia, Fiery Furnaces, Mates of State, MSTRKRFT, Chromeo, The Airborne Toxic Event, Grand Ole Party, The Crystal Method, DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist and more.

The Super Bowl ad that did not actually get to plug its product, the appearance by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, has not generated gangbuster business the day after.
Petty's appearance, like any other musician or actor who showed up to the game, was to get fans to make purchases, in his case concert tickets. Tickets went on sale today about three hours ago in many cities; that fact was never mentioned on air nor in any Petty advertisements. (Nice full page in the New York Times, though).
Clearly, though, fans are either not putting one and one together or they simply don't want to lock in plans for a night in July or August. Petty is selling tickets seven months out to people in Texas and Washington; his first show is May 30 - nearly four months from the on-sale date.
A quick perusal of Ticketmaster offerings nearly three hours into the sale found tickets about half way up in the Hollywood Bowl, far stage right on the second level at Irvine Meadows in Orange County and in the 300 level at Madison Square Garden where the view will be Benmont Tench's side and Steve Ferrone's back. Maybe there are a lot of Giants fans figuring Petty brought the team luck and are therefor scooping up ducats faster than the rest of the country.
Tour opener in Grand Rapids, Mich., had side of the stage seats available and night two, in Auburn Hills outside Detroit, had second level straight back available.

A few friends started debating last week about what might be included in Tom Petty's set  during halftime at the Super Bowl and most of us figured "Running Down a Dream" and "Free Fallin'" were locks until a rumor spread that he's working on  new material.
That certainly threw a wrench into any plans for song pool. Naturally, the discussion turned toward: Is there a Petty album on the horizon that no one knows anything about? Well, right now, no. But there is a tour.
Petty and the Heartbreakers play Sunday in Arizona; tickets for his summer tour go on sale the next day. Steve Winwood will be opening the shows, which start May 30 in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Tour dates after the jump

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will be the star attraction at Super Bowl XLII in 2008.
Petty will perform the halftime show at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on  Feb. 3. Fox made the announcement in its pregame show Sunday.
Petty has a tough act to follow in Prince, who delivered spectacular set at this year's NFL championship game, performing classics in the rain. Petty won't have weather to contend with as the stadium is domed. Petty's music was used last season by the NBA during its playoffs.
If any teams besides the Dallas Cowboys or the New England Patriots are in the game, he should definitely open with "You Got Lucky."
Petty and the Heartbreakers represent yet another classic choice for the NFL, which was burned when it attempted to get contemporary with Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. Since "nipple-gate," the NFL has gone with performers with lengthy and established careers who will perform catalog hits rather than attempt to introduce songs that are about to be released. 

Tom Petty will resume his XM show, “Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure,” on Sept. 24.
The hourlong "Buried Treasure” features tracks from Petty’s personal collection, garage rock masterworks and live tracks plus Petty's commentary.
On this week's playlist are the great N'awlins singer Lee Dorsey doing “Ride Your Pony,” British Invasion rockers the Searchers’ “He’s Got No Love,” and the Pyramids’ surf classic “Penetration.”
Show will available all day every Thursday on XMX.
In other Petty news, Peter Bogdanovich's docu "Runnin' Down A Dream" will be shown in theaters on  Oct. 15. The one night only screening precedes the pic's TV premiere on Sundance Channel on Oct. 29.