(Credits: Far Out / Ирина Лепнёва)
Mon 4 August 2025 18:52, UK
There should always be a healthy sense of competition whenever someone goes out on the road.
Most people like the idea of going to a show and being entertained, but no matter how much some artists enjoy playing music to their adoring fans, there comes a moment when a new band shows up to keep them on their toes. But when Tom Petty first decided to play his first run with the Heartbreakers, he had enough sense to realise when his rock and roll counterparts completely outmatched him.
But when Petty came out, it was a fairly dire time for straight-ahead rock and roll. Punk had become one of the biggest genres in the world at the time, and while disco was starting to rear its head on the charts, Petty came out of Florida like a bolt of lightning, boasting the same influences that people like Bruce Springsteen had a few years earlier. He wanted to bring old-school rock and roll to the forefront again, which meant dealing with a few detractors.
Because as much as Petty loved his Stones and Beatles records, that wasn’t the audience he played to every night. There were people like J Geils Band that fit marginally into his style, but when he was put on the same bill with bands like Rush and Kiss, there was no reason to think that they were going to give the blood-spitting theatrics of Gene Simmons a run for their money by any stretch.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t room for some powerful rock and roll in the mix. Petty never claimed to be the king of stagecraft or anything, but people like Cheap Trick were among the most exciting performers on the scene at the time. And whereas people like Paul Stanley were bringing theatre into the mix, none of the Rockford natives needed any makeup to get their point across.
Rick Nielsen already had his own sense of style with his signature bowties and guitars with a million necks, but the songs were always indebted to the glory days of listening to The Beatles, only this time with a harder edge to it. And when Petty got a load of what Robin Zander was doing, he realised that he may need to step up his game if he wanted to be an engaging performer.
For the heartland rocker, Zander was everything a lead singer was supposed to be, saying, “They hit the stage and it was fucking mind-bending. Robin Zander was one of the most powerful lead singers I’d seen, sang like one of The Beatles. The sheer energy of the thing on the stage was so great. I thought this band was going to be enormous.”
While Cheap Trick may not have had the same appeal as the Heartbreakers, Petty did at least pick up some new tricks from Zander.
Throughout his run with the Heartbreakers, Petty did manage to bring his own sense of style into the mix. Not everything he played was meant to be cool by punk rock standards or anything, but the way he controlled his band onstage was what gave his version of ‘Shout’ a sense of urgency, especially when he got into doing dance moves that made him look like he was possessed by rock and roll.
But given what Cheap Trick could do, it made sense for Petty to decide to only play to people who came to see them. There’s no sense in trying to compete with someone like Zander, so it’s better to get people on board through the strength of the songs rather than any particular sense of style.
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