This October fellow musicians Jeff Slate and Jake Thistle will headline Tom Petty Weekend in the late rocker’s hometown, Gainesville, Florida, playing Petty’s classic album Wildflowers in full (and more) with additional shows in Los Angeles, New York and more.
In a career full of remarkable peaks, Wildflowers still stands as an astonishing creative achievement. One of Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time, it features some of Tom Petty’s best and most enduring songs and performances, including “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” “You Wreck Me,” “It’s Good to Be King,” “Crawling Back to You” and, of course, the elegiac title track.
Petty long-teased a tour built around celebrating Wildflowers, but didn’t get around to it before his untimely passing in 2017. A box set, featuring demos, outtakes and alternate and live versions of the songs from the album - something Petty had also often spoken of - was released in 2020.
Slate and Thistle have collaborated often in recent years, celebrating Petty’s birthday each year, most notably as part of an all-star show at the El Rey Theater in 2019 which featured former-Heartbreakers Ron Blair and Steve Ferrone.
The tour currently includes the following dates:
- Friday, October 11 - Tom Petty Weekend, Gainesville, FL
- Friday, October 18 - Desert 5 Spot, Los Angeles, CA
- Thursday, October 24 - Live at the Falcon, Marlboro, NY
- Friday, October 25 - Hill Country Live!, New York, NY
[More dates are expected to be added shortly]
In related news, Jeff will also be featured as "The Last DJ" guest host on SiriusXM Tom Petty Radio during the week of 9/16.
In November, Jeff Slate and his band will be back on the road, supporting the Wallflowers for a string of East Coast shows.