Tom Petty: Still a Heartbreaker

BY IRA ROBBINS
Special to Newsday

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ended Tuesday's show at the beginning, with "American Girl," the enduring contribution to skinny tie new wave music from their 1976 debut album. Some rockers of such vintage might be self-conscious about the connotations of a three-decade career, but Petty - who, at 55, still has his blond locks and his svelte figure - was never an icon of youth or rebellion. His values skirt such elements in tuneful electric pop that, since "American Girl" at least, have rarely been tied to a big idea or a particular era.

Free of such encumbrance, his achievement and endurance are markers of a well-built machine, not a fading legacy. The few new songs in a carefully constructed two-hour set were ladled gently into a parade of hits, some of them featuring old duet partner Stevie Nicks, who thoughtfully brought along enough gear for two costume changes.

Petty has never been the most forceful front man, but his top-notch band, led by guitarist Mike Campbell, buoys the laconic rocker to effortless agreeability. At only a couple of points, including a note-for-note reproduction of the Yardbirds' 1965 take on "I'm a Man" and the three songs leading up to the encore - "Don't Come Around Here No More," "Refugee" and "Runnin' Down a Dream" - were any fires set onstage. Campbell, sporting dreadlocks and facial hair, looked positively delighted to get excited; otherwise, Petty set the energy level on moderate, rendering sturdy tunes relieved of such traditional rock elements as sex, sweat and rebellion.

In their own way, Petty's songs reveal a deeply felt American sensibility. Without making any overt statements, he endorses freedom, perseverance, courage and recreational sedation.

Starting with "Listen to Her Heart" and "You Don't Know How It Feels" (the drug references in both, as well as in the subsequent "Mary Jane's Last Dance," might explain a surprising amount of unimpeded pot-smoking in the audience), Petty and the five Heartbreakers made it look and sound easy, with measured rhythms, gentle singing and a solid beat provided by Steve Ferrone.
With the homogenization of rock into safe, predictable entertainment, Petty is nothing if not a reliable crowd-pleaser, and he delivered it all: hits, covers, new tunes, genial remarks, the works. If the shapeless boogie of "Saving Grace" and the acoustic plainness of "Square One" offered a discouraging preview of his impending "Highway Companion" album, a pair of borrowed tunes ("I'm a Man" and the pre-Nicks Fleetwood Mac guitar rave-up "Oh Well") brought the past convincingly to life. Nicks joined in on their 1981 hit "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" as well as "I Need to Know" and "American Girl"; Petty's thoroughgoing retrospective even had room for the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care," during which Heartbreaker Scott Thurston gamely attempted the late Roy Orbison's part.

Trey Anastasio, the guitarist-singer late of Phish, opened the evening with an extremely long hour of cotton-wrapped rhythms, shapeless songs and aimless jams that was greeted by some of the most arrhythmic crowd dancing this side of "Barney and Friends."

TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS. Thirty years of hits and no fouls. Seen at Madison Square Garden Tuesday.