Today we’re remembering the legend that was Tom Petty. Here are some thoughts from some of our What’s My Scene writers:
Maryanne Window
I sent a letter to Rickenbacker to get this poster back in pre email times. Had it on my wall for years. I still have it but it has tape marks on it from being on the wall.
Martin Cilia
I saw Tom Petty at the Perth Entertainment Centre with Bob Dylan in the mid eighties. I thought Dylan was quite boring. Tom Petty was much more fun.
Breakdown was one song that stood out to me. This clip is from the same tour:
Mandy Hall
I never got to see Tom Petty live, but I always wanted to. I loved him in the Travelling Wilburys, as well as with the Heartbreakers.
One of my favourite clips involving him is the tribute to George Harrison in 2004 at the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Prince, Dhani Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood and many more musicians.
Sharon Brookes
In the most impressionable time of my life I found The Sweet, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry (Roxy Music), Gary Numan, The Angels, The Cars, Graham Bonnet, Donnie Iris, Skyhooks, Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. If I couldn’t dance to them, I’d set myself up in ‘emo’ mode (before emos existed) and sing of my teenage angst through lyrics about lost loves and hard times. I’m not so involved in the music industry as to know any of my teenage ‘companions’ personally, but they are, and were, more important to me than I can convey. So many of my ‘friends’ have passed and have left a hole in me that not even their music can fill. Not having them here looking at the same moon or making more of their brilliant music leaves a desolate place in my heart. Vale Tom Petty. You were a good man…a talented man. I wish you could have lived a longer time. I will miss you my long time ‘friend’.
