 Mike Doyle
Issue date: 2/23/09 Like a surreal dream, a tribute to one of America's greatest living songwriters mixed video and live music Thursday night at the Pioneer Place.
"Running Down a Dream," a tribute to Tom Petty, matched the documentary of the same title, with a tribute concert featuring Justin Ploof.
Clips of the documentary played in-between songs spanning Petty's career with his band the Heartbreakers, his solo career, and the super group The Traveling Wilburys.
For anyone who is a fan of Petty but did not know much about the man, the show was not only entertaining, but also informative.
In classic "Behind the Music" fashion, the documentary went through the ups and downs of the Heartbreakers including infighting, jealousies, excess, decadence, life on the road and all of the other things that seem to go hand in hand with being in a rock n' roll band.
The music kicked off with the classic "American Girl" with Jason Ploof taking the lead vocals.
Keyboardist Greg Armstrong was up next singing "Break Down," both songs from the band's self-titled first release.
The rest of the lineup included Jeff Engholm on guitar, drummer Peter Anderson, Kiko Doran on bass and Dan Ploof singing backup and banging the tambourine.
The story of Petty is that he is not only a talented songwriter, but a musical renegade who, in the 1980s, took on his record label MCA for control of the publishing rights of his music and won.
While the film vignettes were interesting, they at times seemed to drag on for those in attendance who were there to listen to live music.
During the first set, whenever the band began to swing and get the crowd enthusiastic, a video clip would come on and deflate the atmosphere.
Like Petty, who sang "I Won't Back Down," the band didn't either when playing spot on versions of Heartbreakers classics "Refugee" and "Waiting is the Hardest Part," "It's Alright" from the Traveling Wilburys, and the classic "Free Falling" from Petty's solo album "Full Moon Fever."
The second set ran smoother as there was less video and more songs. The band kicked off the set with the upbeat "Running Down a Dream," a good starter as the crowd began to show signs of life.
"Into the Great Wide Open" featured Justin Ploof and Engholm both on 12 string guitars, electric and acoustic respectively, was played after the music video featuring Johnny Depp, who played Eddie Rebel in the popular video.
Apparently the song started out at three-and-a-half minutes, but because the video had so much good footage, the Heartbreakers decided to extend the single, well over the six minute mark.
Another interesting fact was the making of possibly Petty's most well known song, "Mary Jane's Last Dance."
Coming out with a greatest hits package, the record company wanted Petty to release a hit single to go with the album, an idea which he was initially opposed to.
The song was released and over 10 million records sold later, the rest as they say is history.
The band closed the show with songs from Petty's solo album "Wildflowers."
Playing "Wildflowers," "You Don't Know How it Feels" and "Honey Bee," the band built to a rollicking version of "You Wreck Me" that had a majority of the audience dancing and clapping along with the music.
The encore included "The Last DJ" a poignant close for a tribute to an American legend who may be one of the last of his kind, a refugee who learned to fly without wings and never backed down.
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