Great Tom Petty set last night featuring a guest appearance by Steve Winwood and only one occurrence of the sound cutting out — a step in the right direction!

Petty & Co. delivered almost two hours of nothing but well-loved hits, pausing only for Steve Winwood to come out and sing with the band on “Can’t Find My Way Home” and “Gimme Some Lovin’.” The band was in fine form. I took off my critic’s hat and sang along like everyone else. The sound cut out for a few seconds during “Honey Bee,” which didn’t seem so bad after the problems during the Radiohead set. Let’s see if we can get all the way through the Jack Johnson set tonight without the sound cutting out.

Here was the set list: You Wreck Me / Listen to Her Heart / I Won’t Back Down / Even the Losers / Free Fallin’ / Last Dance With Mary Jane / End of the Line / Can’t Find My Way Home / Gimme Some Lovin’ / Saving Grace / Breakdown / Honey Bee / Learning to Fly / Don’t Come Around Here No More / Refugee // Running Down a Dream / Gloria / American Girl

After the last time I checked in yesterday, I missed Cafe Tacuba completely (that hike from the press area to Speedway Meadow is a bitch), caught a hint of Regina Spektor as I contemplated a slice of Spicy Pie, enjoyed Two Gallants as I savored said slice of pepperoni, caught a little Ben Harper (did I mention I saw his girlfriend Laura Dern backstage?), heard Matt Nathanson cover both “Jessie’s Girl” AND “Kids in America” (seriously, Matt, wouldn’t one of those be enough? I should mention, though, that I overheard Matt play a lovely “Thunder Road” for some podcast in the press tent, so all is forgiven), and caught an amusing five minutes of Cake before heading over to TP&H, which wasn’t nearly as crazy a scene as the Radiohead show the previous night. Nice mellow crowd, big but not overwhelming.

Celebrity sightings: Let’s see. I mentioned Laura Dern. Apparently Natalie Portman was around with Devendra Banhart, but I missed her. I’m pretty sure I saw Jackson Browne hanging out by the VIP bar. I saw Sean Watkins from Nickel Creek. Does he count as a celebrity? I say yes. So it’s not quite Coachella yet — no Ron Jeremy or Tara Reid in attendance, as far as I know — but it’s off to a nice start.

Very much looking forward to Bon Iver, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and Wilco today, and I’ll catch snippets of everyone else as I can squeeze them in. Don’t think I’ll lug my laptop around the festival today, but I’ll try to file something when I get back to the hotel. Peace out.



http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2008/08/24/outside-lan...with-petty-set-list/

Thanks Refugee for posting this. An inside perspective. Interesting that they mixed Gimme Some Lovin into the Heartbreaker's set this show (as I remember they did at Hollywood Bowl). At Glendale Steve Winwood kept it to his opening set. Killer versions of that and Dear Mr. Fantasy. I think I appreciated Steve's set a lot more at Glendale. He rocked.

Great show - even if the band had to take 5 for some kind of technical difficulty, and then the sound cut out about 5 times or so briefly.... I think Jim's electric tree sucked up so much power it took down the sound system

Everyone put in a great performance, but for some reason Benmont's piano was set up waaaaay too far from the left side of the stage, resulting in Mike and Steve being obstructed. (It is a really big stage and from Scott to Benmont only ended up using 2/3 of it, and shifting everything to Scott's side (or at least that is how it looked to us).

Thankfully Tom and Mike both ventured out of 'the box' and gave those at the sides of the stage a little something extra to cheer about!

Man oh man SF is a fun town!

Gotta do that festival again!

Thank you Susie, AJ, and everyone there at the rail. You made all that standing a hell of a lot of fun. I can feel my feet again! LOL

quote:

I’m pretty sure I saw Jackson Browne hanging out by the VIP bar.

The woman at the Cowgirl Creamery cheese booth (where we got a great dinner of cheese, olive oil, and baguette) said she was still flustered because Jackson Browne had been at her booth a few minutes earlier. I told her I felt the same way when I passed by him in a small hall on the way to the ladies room once.

quote:

(It is a really big stage and from Scott to Benmont only ended up using 2/3 of it, and shifting everything to Scott's side (or at least that is how it looked to us).

In Florida I was on the other side of the stage and it seemed like everyone was way over to Benmont's side of the stage. Go figure. lol

If that technical difficult brought Ron and Tom up to the same mic stand then I'd say it was suppose to happen. That is a nice picture.

^ Truly. Never even considered that possibility Elf, but you're absolutely right. Chaos theory at work LOL!

Link: http://cfimage.cdn.fm/photo/upload/0000/f8d935e628d1769f/default.jpg

Every muscle in my body hurts.... And we're ready to go to another festival! LOL! We never learn!

Well if you didn't insist on playing frisbee when being out of shape that kind of thing happens, my love. At least you didn't throw out your back packing your suitcase to come home like I did.

We're getting too old for this stuff, but I refuse to grow up!!!

^Oh you are starting to catch up with me. Yup you have to think a little different about your bones at times.

Maybe we need a manual.