Recently my wife and I went to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers play at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. Tom Petty's music is considered to be "classic rock," a genre which has mysteriously grown to include pretty much everything I listened to in college. We didn't know it was classic back then, so we just called it "regular rock." They were great, of course. Petty even hauled out Stevie Nicks for a couple of numbers, which was cool, although it did make me wonder what kind of box he keeps her in off-stage. Petty and Nicks both look the same as they did 30 years ago, but I suppose that's true of most people who are 200 yards away.We were seated in section G1, seats 32 and 33, which is a very precise way to describe "anywhere you can find five square feet on the lawn that's not already covered by somebody's blanket." Actually, "lawn" isn't a very accurate description either. "Grass-covered cliff" is probably closer. Our seats weren't that good at the start of the show, but had gotten quite a bit better by the end, thanks to erosion. The crowd sang along on most of Petty's songs, and those of us clinging for our lives to clumps of vegetation gave added gusto to the chorus of "Free Fallin'." By the time they got to "Learning to Fly," several of us who had foolishly attempted to return to basecamp for provisions had already taken a trip into the great wide open. We lost a lot of good men that night.
We had a great time anyway, although not being stoned at an outdoor Tom Petty concert in Berkeley makes one feel a little like Ronald McDonald at a PETA rally. (Why is everyone looking at me funny? Is it the hair?) By the end of the evening I was walking around with a flashlight, telling the ushers, "Hey, you can't sit there." It's cool, though, because I made a lot of money on parking. And who knew that you could sell oregano for $20 a bag?
I have to apologize for the caption on the picture. It's not very nice, I know, but I'm trying to balance out the relative lack of snarkiness of this post. It's hard to be snarky about a legend like Tom Petty -- unless you bring up his performance as the mayor in the soporific sci-fi epic The Postman, and that's really reaching (I should make a joke here about it being a "post-apocalyptic" movie, but I'm already bored talking about it). Besides, I think there was some kind of contract that you had to sign to be a rock star in the 80s that committed you to a role as either a villain or the leader of a post-apocalyptic civilization in a big budget sci-fi movie.*
Anyway, in order to fill my snarkiness quota and to keep from breaking my tradition of ragging on Nickelback at least once a week, let me add this otherwise unrelated comment:
I'm disappointed that they cancelled the TV show Smith, starring Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen. Why? Because the show earned my loyalty in an episode where one of the main characters, played by Simon Baker**, notices that a Nickelback CD is playing in the Hummer he has just stolen. He ejects the CD, throws it out the window, and puts in another CD. Brilliant. How much chutzpah does it take to pay a band for the rights to use their music in a TV show for the express purpose of dissing the band? And what kind of money-grubbing whores are Nickelback to go along with it? Oh yeah, the multi-platinum kind of money-grubbing whores.
Anyway, I need to get back to my screenplay. It's about a renegade loner who turns out to be the salvation of a society whose existence is threatened by Chad Kroeger. It's semi-autobiographical.
*10 points if you can name three other movies/rock stars in this category. And David Bowie in Labyrinth doesn't count, but I'll give it to you if you can name the sci-fi movie he was in. By the way, I can come up with four other examples off the top of my head, but that's because I'm a freak.
**5 more points if you can also name a sci-fi movie starring each of the following: Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, and Simon Baker. No, not the same movie, smart guy. Three different movies.
Technorati Tags: Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, Nickelback, Ray Liotta, Chad Kroeger, classic rock, humor
Labels: Music
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