I am free falling...

I always thought that Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's "Pack up the plantation" was one of the best live albums ever. I think that now needs to be replaced with the concert that took place last night at the Tweeter center in Camden, NJ. It can be released under the title, "Unpack the plantation".

The band played to a packed record breaking crowd. Never before have so many people been fit into the center and never before has so much noise been made. You could hardly hear Tom sing in many of the songs because the crowd took over.

The opening band was the Allman Brothers and they did a brilliant job too. They belted out "Layla" which in my opinion sounded better than Clapton's version :-) They also played "Highway 61" with the Heartbreakers and the jam with Mike Campbell sure did take my breath away.

Tom Petty finally showed up around 9pm. It was quite eerie that they opened the concert with "Listen to your heart", which has been my shower song for the last few days. It got even stranger. I usually go to a concert hoping that the band will play one of their obscure numbers which happen to be a favorite of mine. It usually never happens. So when Tom said he was going to play a number from his "Echos" album, I still did not think they would play "Good to be king". But low and behold they did and sweetened it with an extended lead in the end.

Tom also played "Not Alone Anymore" from his Traveling Wilbury days followed by "Learning to Fly". It sure made me think of wenerd who introduced me to Petty. So thank you, my dear friend, it is indeed good to be king even if only for a couple of hours... I just wished I had met those two gunslingers too on King's Highway.