Martinez Tribune The website of the Martinez Tribune.
BY HELEN LAME’
Visiting the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco for the first time, Mike Campbell delivered a career spanning acoustic dream set for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers fans Tuesday night as part of a brief west coast tour to promote his recently released autobiography, Heartbreaker: A Memoir.
“I wanted to be real, and I wanted to be truthful,” said Campbell. “I wanted to illuminate my relationship with my brothers in the Heartbreakers.” The book also shares details of his collaborations with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan (Petty and Campbell fronted Dylan’s backing band on his 1986 World Tour) and the Traveling Wilburys in addition to Stevie Nicks and being a part of Fleetwood Mac’s 2018-19 tour.
One of the greatest guitarists of the classic rock era, Campbell presented a generous 2 1/4 hour unplugged set, mostly chronologically, covering many of the greatest hits he helped create before a near sell out crowd with his backing band The Dirty Knobs.
Best known as Tom Petty’s lead guitarist and side kick from their musical association that dates back to Jacksonville, Florida in the early 70’s, Campbell was faced with the devastating loss of his close friend and long time collaborator when Petty died suddenly nine years ago. “I’m so proud of my legacy,” Campbell said. ” I wouldn’t do anything to damage that integrity. I do not want to be in a tribute band. That’s why I wouldn’t reunite the group. Mike Campbell and the Heartbreakers just doesn’t sit right in my soul. I have reached the point where I can sing those songs pretty well, but I get kind of sad playing them now.”
Dealing with the painful grieving process for the loss of his long time mate, Campbell first dove into the role of curator along with long time Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench and the Petty estate to search thru decades of outtakes and live recordings for archive releases to extend the bands‘s legacy, most significantly a four disc anthology culled from the Heartbreakers twenty night engagement at The Fillmore in 1997.
Campbell, 75, first formed the Dirty Knobs in the late 2000’s as a creative release for stretches when the Heartbreakers weren’t touring or in the studio. ““Losing Tom was earth-shattering for me,” Campbell said in a Rolling Stone interview. “It was a total shock. It had felt like we would be playing together forever. For a while it was hard to imagine playing in my own band again, let alone one where I’m the frontman. Tom was always my beacon. But everything I’ve been doing since Tom passed is in the spirit of honoring what we did together.”
The Dirty Knobs released their first album Wreckless Abandon in November 2020 during the height of Covid. Unable to tour, the band wasted little time recording its follow-up External Combustion which dropped two years later and most recently Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits last year.
Joined by guitarist/keyboardist Chris Holt, Lance Morrison on bass and former Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone, the seemingly relaxed Campbell took the stage wearing a long overcoat in addition to his trademark hat, setting the stage for a 22 song set that would be a highly cathartic and most enjoyable experience for all involved as he would consistently “tell tales from the book” as he introduced each song.
Opening with “Rockin’ Around (With You),” the first song from the Heartbreakers 1976 self-titled debut album as a slide show flashed in the background, Campbell and The Dirty Knobs proceeded to produce a set of Heartbreakers classics along with a few hidden gems.
“Listen to Her Heart” and “Even The Losers,” from 1979’s breakout hit Damn the Torpedoes were the first true hits played during the evening, but many would soon follow. Campbell detailed the band’s early struggles with their first record label before introducing Hollye Bynum to handle Nicks duet on “Insider,” the track the Heartbreakers released on 1981’s Hard Promises from the sessions that resulted in Nicks blockbuster “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” from her debut solo album Bella Donna.
The melancholic “You Can Still Change Your Mind,” also recorded with Nicks would follow, setting the stage for one of the most entertaining portions of the show. A haunting version of “Refugee” that started out downbeat before building to a grungy conclusion preceded a countrified version of the always amusing “Girl on LSD.” “Here Comes My Girl” and “Even the Losers” would follow in short order.
Returning to his new role as storyteller in chief, Campbell explained how Petty’s rejection of a song he wrote around 1985 led to the the biggest hit of Don Henley’s career as he introduced “The Boys of Summer” as a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac flashed on the screen behind the stage. Bynum returned to the stage to help with the harmonies on the Wilburys “End of the Line,” before “Jammin’ Me” from Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) signaled that the end of a truly generous set was approaching, even though more fun remained.
An unexpected version of The Valentino’s “It’s All Over Now,” later popularized by both the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart (with The Faces) left the crowd in a state of near euphoria before The Knobs took it down a notch to play Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me,” which the Heartbreakers first recorded for 1979’s No Nukes album, released following a benefit concert in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor meltdown.
There were no brakes applied to “You Wreck Me,” from Petty’s 1994 solo project Wildflowers, just a full frontal assault on your senses from the opening salvo before the band left the stage briefly prior to returning for an inevitable encore that marked the timely premiere of The Dirty Knobs covering the Heartbreakers 1992 holiday cut “Christmas All Over Again.”
Part of the beauty of the band’s performances is that truly no material is out of bounds. While they’ve only recorded a total of 35 tracks for their three albums, they’ve now played dozens of different Petty songs in addition to covering rock classics by artists such as The Byrds, Dylan, Bo Diddley and John Lennon along the way.
It’s beyond impressive to fathom how seamlessly Campbell has transitioned from being an icon’s trusty sidekick into an engaging first rate frontman after being in the shadows for all those years. The only other example that comes to mind is the way Dave Grohl proceeded to conquer the galaxy with Foo Fighters after stepping out from behind his drum kit after Kurt Cobain’s death. But that was a meteoric relationship that only stretched four years.
Campbell was both Petty’s partner and brother for close to 45 years, a painful loss that both he and the music world continue to deal with. Fortunately he’s more than capable of keeping The Heartbreakers musical legacy alive along with a healthy dose of quality new material. The charisma and suppressed creativity that he’s brought to The Dirty Knobs to share with us is just a delicious icing on the cake.
Campbell and the Dirty Knobs final show of their brief acoustic tour is scheduled for Thursday night in Los Angeles at the United Theater.
