Petty gives crowd `Full Moon Fever'

By Sarah Rodman

Like a fine Swiss watch or Randy Jackson saying, ``It was just alright for me, dawg'' on ``American Idol,'' Tom Petty is incredibly dependable.

Almost 30 years in, the Florida rocker and his merry band of Heartbreakers are seemingly incapable of playing a mediocre show in the Boston area.

They kept their streak alive last night with a slow-warming but ultimately blazing two-hour performance at the Tweeter Center in front of a giddy sold-out crowd that showered the band with effusive ovations.

Though Petty grouped a few too many slow numbers together in the early going, it was hard to quibble with titles ``You Don't Know How it Feels,'' crowd favorite ``Free Fallin' '' and ``Breakdown'' - with Mike Campbell's sinuous guitar line - which Petty recalled was played for the first time in the United States on WBCN.

In fact, there was nary a dud in the 20-song setlist. The band, staged in front of a huge wall of video screens of various geometric shapes, jumped from era to era with ease as a garage-y early track like ``Don't Do Me Like That'' led seamlessly into the spit-polish swagger of '90s jam ``Mary Jane's Last Dance.''

The '80s were also well represented with workouts of the lovely waltz-time acoustic ballad ``It'll All Work Out,'' the skewed psychedelia of ``Don't Come Around Here No More,'' the Travelin' Wilburys' ``Handle With Care'' and ``Full Moon Fever'' hits like the wriggly ``Runnin' Down a Dream.'' And though several hits were overlooked, Petty's catalog is so ridiculously rife with them that it's hard to imagine anyone went home unhappy with the choices he made.

A couple of top-notch new tunes also made the cut, including the slide guitar-laced ``Turn This Car Around'' and the acoustic country gallop ``Melinda,'' which featured a thrilling, percussive piano solo from Benmont Tench.

Petty, who had a great goofy grin for most the evening, and the band seemed to be having a ball,, and he repeatedly thanked the crowd between jaunty little hip swivels and sizzling solos.
The night came to a close with a run through ``You Wreck Me,'' a singalong of Bob Dylan's ``Rainy Day Women #12 and 35'' - although the people directly to my left happily embraced the ``Everybody must get stoned'' ethos much, much earlier in the evening - and a jubilant ``American Girl.''