Soundstage: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Live (2008)

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Soundstage" DVD tracklisting:

Part 1 -

Baby Please Don't Go

Crawlin Back To You

Handle With Care

I Won't Back Down

I'm Cryin'

Angel Dream

Melinda

Born In Chicago

Red Rooster

Carol

Refugee

Part 2 -

Love Is A Long Road

You Don't Know How It Feels

Black Leather Woman

I Done Somebody Wrong

I Got A Woman

Thirteen Days

Wake Up Time

Rollin' In My Sweet Baby's Arms

Lost Children

Two Men Talking

You Wreck Me

A good mix of hits and rarely heard music. "Two Men Talking" is a real gem of impromtu Jazz.

To all my fellow Tom Petty fans I want you to be aware that this is a rerelease of the Soundstage concert that is currently available for sale. Same line up and close to identical cover. If you own the Soundstage performance already there is no need to purchase this.

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The good news here is that the sound quality is excellent, the picture quality is very clear, and the concert is just shown in a normal, natural way as it should be. That last part might be taken for granted, but too often concert videos can be ruined by herky-jerky fast-cut editing that attempts to make the show more "interesting". Which is really stupid, because if someone is watching the concert, they just want to see and hear the band, not clever editing or lengthy fan shots. Rest assured that this video presents the band itself as the entertainment, not the editing or the crowd. A very good thing.

Since the sound, picture, and editing are so good, I'm tempted to give this 5 stars. But it gets only 4 from me for various reasons. One is that there are 9 "cover" songs here vs. 13 written by Petty/Heartbreakers. Given that the band's own songs are so great, I don't like hearing so many covers, which I consider to be of lesser quality than the band's own songs. If more Petty & Heartbreakers DVD's were available covering the band's own songs, this wouldn't be such a problem. But since this is only one of 3 existing DVDs from the band, "too many" covers is a minor quibble. Then there's the drummer situation. Original drummer Stan Lynch was very creative, yet stayed completely "in synch" with the rest of the band which made his drumming a big part of the Heartbreaker's success. His replacement, Steve Ferrone, is "ok" but not great, and often seems to lack the cohesion that Lynch had with the rest of the band. So I feel to a great extent that without Stan Lynch on drums, this isn't really THE Heartbreakers. Finally, the price on this set is slightly high, so for all these reasons I can't give the set a full 5 stars.

Still, true fans of the band (and yes I'm one) should definitely get this. I like this a lot better than "High Grass Dogs" (which is very poorly edited, and not great sounding), and it's close to "Live at the Olympic". I do somewhat prefer "Olympic" to this one, mainly because the songs on that one were written by Petty himself (and it's also great sounding and well edited). It's a shame that there aren't more/better concert DVD choices though for a band with such a rich history as this one. My favorite official TP & Heartbreakers concert video was 1991's "Take the Highway", but that's never been on DVD, and now it's not even available on VHS. Same situation with 1985's "Pack up the Plantation", though I didn't like that one as much as "Highway", due both to its jerky editing, as well as the overbearing presence of a horn section and backup singer/dancers. Both of those concerts should be on DVD now though, it's a shame they aren't. And I suppose it would be too much to ask for some of the Heartbreakers' European (or American) tv appearances to be released onto DVD, but they should be too after all, 20+ year old European shows from Blondie, The Cars, and Bruce Springsteen (among others) have been officially released recently to DVD, so why not something from TP & the Heartbreakers?

Read Best Reviews of Soundstage: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Live (2008) Here

This is a first class DVD. Picture and sound are outstanding. Tom and the boys are in top form here. The eight bonus songs on disc 2 are very good. This band is so much better live. A lot of highlights on these two discs. If you ever thought about buying a Tom Petty DVD get this one.

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Soundstage: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Live [Blu-ray] (2008)

If you don't have the DVD Running Down A Dream by Peter Bogdanovich buy it first. Then buy this one. It has many songs not found on Running and the audio and video are excellent. With these 2 DVDs, you will have many hours of viewing pleasure.