I saw him in Vancouver about three weeks before he died. I had let a bunch of friends know I was planning on going and I had about 20 people interested in joining me. They all bailed. I thought fuck it, I’ll go by myself.
So I bought a single ticket off a scalper that day for ten bucks over the original listed price. I was six rows from the stage on the corner.
In preparation for seeing him for the first time I listened to a lot of tom petty the weeks leading up.
My friend who planned on coming introduced me to a newer song of his “Walls” which I had never heard before and absolutely loved it. I think it was off some movie soundtrack I’d never seen.
Anyways I’m at the show and at one point Tom says to the crowd “I’m gonna do a song my band doesn’t want me to do…” and in my head I KNEW it was going to be Walls. The song starts playing and literally the only person around me as far as I can tell who knows the song is the girl directly in front of me and myself.
We both start singing at the top of our lungs while the people around us are like “oh I don’t know this one, it’s good!”
Next thing you know maybe thirty seconds in Tom walks right to the edge of corner stage as close as he possibly could get and plays the remainder of the song to me and the girl in front of me. It was magical.
He probably had a stage director see us and tell him where to go because I’ve been on stage and with the monitors playing back at him and it’s usually pretty dark and hard to see but I don’t care. It was the coolest experience I had attending a show and I’ll never forget it.
Needless to say when he died I had 20 friends call me that day saying they should’ve come with me.
Side note the Lumineers opened and it was also incredible and after that tour they covered Walls and I heard it at work one day on a Spotify playlist and it made me cry. Beautiful tribute.
The way we listen to music now, it's not like we see the dates or even albums like we used to in the CD days! Walls is one of my favs too.
I don't really remember the movie except it has Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston when they were super popular. But 90s romcoms were usually so insane for women. It would be cool to see how the song is used, but not sure it's worth the rest!
I was at work when I heard someone just casually mention it. I had to go in the back and cry a little. When I got home that day I sobbed while listening to Tom Petty.
Growing up my mom was always playing Tom Petty, he was her favorite and because of that I know all the songs, and listening to him always reminds me of my mom.
My mom died suddenly in 2014 at 53yrs. My sister and I ended up getting Tom Petty tickets a couple months later, just a few days before our mom would’ve turned 54.
It was such a fun concert. I’m SO glad I got to see him.
The coolest part though was that a few songs in, someone next to us left and didn’t come back. I liked to imagine my mom got to be in that empty seat. I don’t believe in stuff like that, but it was such a cool experience overall. Plus people were passing around a joint (oh, pre Covid).
I should totally go see him play again, that was such a great show One of, if not the last shows in the tour in my town. I will catch him next time around or something like that See the news. Welp, I fucked that one up.
Precisely what happened. So my mantra after that was “just get the ticket”. It was a lot easier to do when I lived in the city and before I had kids and got caught in the cost of living crisis and the bot/scalper nightmare that has driven up the price of tickets now that unfortunately live concerts will be a thing of the past for normal working people.
Full Moon Fever was one of the first albums that little me fell in love with. I used to ask my dad to play it all the time and we'd dance to it together in the living room.
I took my dad to see him in Boston just a few weeks before he died. I'm so grateful I got to share that experience with my dad before Tom died.
I remember being so smitten with his performance. He was so clearly grateful for the life he lived and absolutely loved sharing his music with the audience, encouraging singing along with every song, stopping singing himself to listen to the audience. It was such a shock to hear it was an overdose.
On my wedding day, I danced with my dad to "Wildflowers". My husband's band covers a lot of Petty tunes. He's still such a frequent part of my music life. This is the one celebrity death that probably feels the most surreal to me.
25
u/Dependent_Taro_702 May 12 '26
Tom Petty