I couldn’t resist catching some of a Tom Petty tribute at Average Joes, Saturday, Sept. 23. It turned out being bittersweet as Petty passed away later in the week. But his music lives on thanks to radio play and tribute acts like Totally Tom P
etty.
I arrived in time for a second set of Vancouver based tribute act Tom Petty presents the Women of Rock.
The set began with a prerecorded harmonica solo playing as frontman Phil Dunget, looking every bit like Tom Petty, with flowing, shoulder length blond hair and quirky sunglasses, playing“ You Don’t Know What It’s Like,” and following it up with “Learning to Fly” and “ Mary Jane’s last Dance.”
He nailed the guitar solos, note perfectly. He donned a Tom Petty top hat as “Stevie Nicks” aka Linda Maze, who was performing all of the ladies including Pat Benetar and Chrissy Hynde, took the stage for some of Stevie Nicks‘ hits as well as to sing harmony on some more Tom Petty songs.
She definitely had the Stevie Nicks ’70s hippy meets disco duck look down with shaggy blond hair and sultry red dress, and swaying in place.
She sang “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and added extra harmonies on “Running Down a Dream.”
But she also took a solo spot, playing a beautiful version of Landslide” on acoustic guitar.
A dark haired lady joined them to add extra tambourine, who I thought was going to sing Chrissy Hynde as she resembled her, but ended up just being an audience member.
They ended their show with “American Girl.”
