Tom Petty’s music resonates with TECO crowd

By MARY WOZNIAK, mwozniak@news-press.comPublished by news-press.com on August 23, 2003

The California Cracker came home to his roots Friday night to a roaring welcome at TECO Arena in Estero.

Rocker Tom Petty, a Gainesville native playing the Southwest Florida venue for the first time, captured the crowd with his voice of rebellion untainted and unmellowed by nearly 30 years in the music business.

He may be 51, but the boyish image, though in a grown-up suit and claret-colored shirt, is still there.

If you squeeze your eyes shut you hear the still-fresh sound of a rocker railing at the world’s injustice. That’s the voice of rebellion. No frills. No vibrato. He’s just in your face.

The people in the audience: a mix of teenagers in pigtails, baby boomers and beyond.
There was Mark Robinson, 46, of Naples, who loves Petty’s music and lyrics, particularly, “If I Were King,” a song the rocker didn’t play this time around.

Robinson likes it because of the possibilities. It’s never giving up hope. Someday he may be king. “It’s a fantasy of most people. Power. Prestige,” Robinson said.

Petty is the urban troubadour who appeals to Everyman and his dreams. He may have moved to Los Angeles in 1974, but the soul of a Florida “Cracker” still remains with him, perhaps in his Southern roots and a country-western background, as seen in other songs like “Great Wide Open,” or the themes of love lost and a life of hard knocks.

Petty took the stage playing “American Girl” first, bringing the crowd to its feet., followed swiftly by the Dylanesque, “You Don’t Know How it Feels” (to be me).

With a blinding smile, he worked the crowd.

There are times he’s a dead ringer for Dylan, as in “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” which the crowd sang with him.

But mostly he sounds like himself, the singer who seems to be straining to reach a key he shouldn’t be, but wants to. If the voice isn’t exactly musical, well, good. The message is in the song’s delivery and the lyrics.

Petty isn’t a deep philosopher. His messages are plain, simple and always in your face. They’re about the angst of the working man, love, breakups, heartache, the need for respect. They fit in as well in Buffalo, N.Y., as they do in Fort Myers.

He just won’t back down, by the way, the name of another anthem that brought the house down.
“I know what’s right
I got just one life
In a world that keeps pushing me around
I won’t back down”