Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Crosby, Stills & Nash gave great performances Tuesday night. Both played lots of hits, got the crowd going and showed why they've had staying power, churning out several classics over the years.
CSN got the concert started, and they really felt like a double headliner, not an opening act. The concert was a little later than usual - started at 8 - so there were a lot of people already inside, and it was dark, so CSN could feel like a headliner. They played "Bluebird" and went into "Deja Vu" and got more crowd approval deeper into the set with "Southern Cross" going into "Almost Cut My Hair."
Here's the CSN setlist:
Woodstock (Joni Mitchell cover)
Military Madness (Graham Nash cover)
Long Time Gone
Bluebird (Buffalo Springfield cover)
Deja Vu
Ruby Tuesday (The Rolling Stones cover)
Our House
Southern Cross
Almost Cut My Hair
Wooden Ships
Encore: For What It's Worth (Buffalo Springfield cover)
It took Tom Petty just about an hour to go on after CSN ended, which felt like a really long time. As the crowd grew restless, though, the crew kept sound checking, and I think they may have changed the camera for the big screens because the stage - Tom Petty, mainly - had a soft glow and looked almost holy in the screen picture. It was a pretty cool effect. If it wasn't on purpose, it worked. The set list worked in that it included the more popular, crowd-pleasing hits - I think I felt the cloud form on the lawn during "Last Dance with Mary Jane" - but saved room for some stuff off their new album, Mojo, which sounds like classic Tom Petty except maybe a little jammier, with more guitar riffs and fewer catchy choruses. After the Mojo interlude, the band went right back to playing their hits with a light version of "Learning to Fly," complete with a singalong toward the end. Then they brought the pace back up with "Don't Come Around Here No More" and ended with "Refugee before coming back to an encore of "Running Down A Dream and "American Girl."
Here is close to a complete Tom Petty set list:
Listen to Her Heart
You Don't Know How It Feels
I Won't Back Down
Free Fallin'
(Not sure what song was after this. I was getting really into the concert and didn't know the song off the top of my head and didn't catch lyrics to look it up.)
Mary Jane's Last Dance
(Also not sure on this next song.)
Breakdown
Jefferson Jericho Blues
Good Enough
Running Man's Bible
I Should Have Known It
Learning to Fly
Don't Come Around Here No More
Refugee
Encore: Runnin' Down a Dream
American Girl
On a side note from the concert, I have to say that the worst thing to happen after a concert - with tons of heavy traffic - did. There was a fire right behind the parking lot at the Meadows, now the Comcast Theater in Hartford. Luckily, I got out of the concert pretty quickly and pretty much ran to my car. Strangely enough, there was another fire in Hartford at a three-family house, and that was in the news, but not this fire. So I don't have any other information on this fire. If anyone who reads this finds more info, I'd be curious to know what exactly happened.
(Picture of the fire)
After running to my car, I drove from my parking spot to the line of cars trying to get out and noticed a pretty big fire toward the back of the lot. Nervously, everyone was pushing to get out. Still no sign of fire trucks or sirens, I got to the traffic light and main road by the time the first fire truck came. We opened our windows to ask the other cars in traffic if they were near the fire and could see what happened. One guy said he was two rows away from it and it was on the tracks. Imagine how scary it must have been for people parked in that area. I'd be terrified the fire would spread to my car. Also, it formed a pretty big cloud of smoke, so it was probably hard to breathe right next to the fire. I was glad I got out of there, too, because with the fire trucks coming in, cars would definitely be blocked. I hope everyone who attended the concert had a good time and got out safely without too much delay.
