One Headlight Downtown, The Wallflowers Play Two Full Albums at the Orpheum
Jakob Dylan will perform Bringing Down the Horse and Tom Petty’s Long After Dark in full on Tuesday, October 13.
On Tuesday night the Orpheum will play a record that belongs to Jakob Dylan and a record that belongs to the man he grew up admiring. On October 13, The Wallflowers will play their 1996 album Bringing Down the Horse and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Long After Dark, both from start to finish, the Los Angeles Daily News reported. LAist put the show on its list of the week’s best things to do, listing an 8 p.m. start and tickets at $53.
Two Albums, Back to Back
Bringing Down the Horse was the band’s second album, and it carried “One Headlight,” “6th Avenue Heartache,” “The Difference” and “The Three Marlenas.” It sold more than four million copies, the Daily News wrote. Dylan, 56, is on tour for its 30th anniversary, but the Daily News wrote that the run is just as much about Petty’s overlooked 1982 record, which followed Damn the Torpedoes and Hard Promises and includes the synth-driven “You Got Lucky” and the jangle-heavy “Change of Heart.”
“I’ve loved playing Tom’s songs for years,” Dylan said. “I’m a fan and that’s a good thing.” The band plays as much Petty as Wallflowers material, the paper wrote.
A Fan Before Anything Else
Petty died in 2017, and the Heartbreakers do not look likely to reunite. Keyboardist Benmont Tench, Petty’s lifelong friend and bandmate, told the Daily News he could not imagine doing so. “Not having Tom as the engine for the vehicle makes it something I can’t imagine,” Tench said.
Dylan has spent time with Petty on tape as well. His documentary on the Laurel Canyon music scene, Echo in the Canyon, included what was Petty’s last interview, a conversation in a guitar shop after it had closed, with Petty trying out guitars and amps for two hours. “Tom never lost that adolescent spark when it came to music,” Dylan said in a phone interview from Los Angeles. He added that Petty spoke as a student of the music rather than as one of the giants of the industry.
Long After Dark came out just as Dylan turned 13 and became obsessed with music, the Daily News noted. He is the son of Bob Dylan, who was Petty’s bandmate in the Traveling Wilburys, and the Daily News wrote that there was no other career path for him. He also remembered watching Petty on the road. “Tom was never ambivalent, bored or pandered to an audience,” he said. “He was locked in onstage.”
Practical Details
The Wallflowers play the Orpheum Theatre, 842 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, on Tuesday, October 13, at 8 p.m. Tickets and details are available through the theater.
