This week in music: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers hit Twin Cities
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,Melissa Etheridge and Pat Benatar re among the major acts making tour stops in the Twin Cities later this week.
Petty and his longtime group are playing Target Center Saturday, which concludes the band's largest North American concert tour since 2010.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, the group has been wowing concert critics coast to coast this spring and summer with their mix of hits and deep cuts during their shows .
In a concert at the Bacon Theater in New York City last month, the New York Daily News' Jim Farber says the decision to mix up the set list "paid off in the single hardest, tightest, and most exciting Heartbreakers' concert I've seen in three decades of attending their appearances in the city."
Los Angeles Times critic Randall Roberts was as equally impressed with the group's mixture of songs in Hollywood's Fonda Theater earlier this month, saying Petty and the band "cooked through enough singalong gems to feed the eager crowd -- 'I Won’t Back Down,' 'Refugee,' 'Runnin’ Down a Dream' and, in Petty’s words, 'the one that started it all,' 'American Girl.'"
Roberts was most impressed, though, with the deep tracks, saying the "meat of the show featured them dusting off tracks including the early 'Fooled Again (I Don’t Like It),' from the band’s 1976 self-titled debut, 'A Woman in Love (It’s Not Me)' from 'Hard Promises' and the sexy blues romp 'Cabin Down Below' from Petty’s solo album 'Wildflowers.'"
Etheridge, meanwhile, will play the Weesner Family Amphitheater in Apple Valley on Friday as part of the continuing "Music in the Zoo" series at the Minnesota Zoo, while '70s and '80s rocker Pat Benatar (along with longtime husband and musical partner Neil Giraldo) play the zoo amphitheater on Sunday.
