Tom Petty -- Post-Show

Had a fantastic time at the Tom Petty concert last night. Great, great show from Petty and the Heartbreakers. The set list was very similar to the one I posted yesterday, except they cut "Gloria" out of the encore, and, in a bit of a disappointment, Steve Winwood didn't join him for a couple of songs, as he has been doing frequently throughout the tour. (I'll print the full set list here once it gets posted on Petty's website, for future historians to appreciate.) (EDIT: Apparently, they're posting just about every set list from this tour except for the show I went to.)

But I finally got to see Petty live, and that was all that mattered. He rocked my face quite handily.

A few notes on the show:

--The approach to the Verizon Amphitheatre could not have been more poorly laid out. You would think: gigantic amphitheatre, approximately 20,000 capacity... perhaps some consideration should be made to the amount of traffic this will generate. But no: for about the last mile and a half, there's just a little two-lane country road in the middle of pastures and goat farms leading up to the venue. We were stuck in a line of barely-moving cars for almost forty damn minutes, which resulted in me missing almost the entirety of Winwood's set. All I caught were the last two songs, "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and "Gimme Some Lovin'." And he sounded great. I hate that I missed so much of his performance. Next time I go to the Verizon, I think I'll park a couple miles away and bring some roller skates.

--My buddy Brian and I had lawn tickets, but when we got to the lawn section, there was a table set up that said, "Upgrades $10." So we paid twenty bucks and got tickets to move up to the covered seats. Totally worth it. Especially when you consider if I had paid for a similar upgrade online, it would've run me more like $40 or $50 extra.

--It was oppressively humid, topping out, according to Weather.com, at 83%. According to scientists, standing underneath a steaming hot shower for 20 minutes only reaches 80% humidity, so you can understand how bad it was. That's not true at all, of course, but that's what it felt like.

--Petty was wearing black boots, black jeans, and a black long-sleeved shirt. I suspect his wardrobe combined with the humidity may have contributed to he (and Winwood) cutting a couple songs from the show. Not that he looked all that put out by the mugginess. He is a Florida boy, after all; he's probably used to much worse, now that I think about it. (Weather.com says Gainesville, FL, Petty's hometown, hit 93% humidity yesterday morning. Yikes.)

--Beers were nine dollars. Nine goddam dollars. For a 24 oz. Miller Lite. Yeah.

--"American Girl" is just about the best fucking song ever.