Boston Photos and Recap

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  • Boston Photos and Recap

    TD Garden

    Boston, MA

    July 20-21, 2017

     

    On December 10 & 12, 1976, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers played their first two shows in Boston, MA, opening up for Al Kooper at Paul’s Mall, a long-defunct club located underground at 733 Boylston Street.

     

    Their self-titled debut album had been out for about a month on Shelter Records, and deejays in Boston were among the first in the country to spin it. Depending on who you ask in the Heartbreaker camp, the Boston shows were among the first ten gigs of the band’s storied career. The band and road crew stayed just around the corner from the club at the Lenox Hotel, the same hotel that Red Auerbach lived in while he coached the Boston Celtics. After sound check the first night, keyboardist Benmont Tench snuck back onstage to check out the drawbar settings on Kooper’s Hammond organ. These were the early days, and the road was ahead of them.

     

    Over 40 years later, Tom and the guys returned to Boston for two shows at TD Garden that seemed to celebrate the joint history between the city and the band.

     

    “This is the first song off our first album, Boston, and you were one of the first places it got played!” Tom told the sold-out crowd at TD Garden the first night before the band ripped into “Rockin’ Around With You” off their debut album. Night one saw the return of “You Got Lucky” to the setlist, and both “Into The Great Wide Open” and “Swingin’” made it into the show on night two.

     

    07.20.17

     

    Rockin’ Around With You

    Mary Jane’s Last Dance

    You Don’t Know How It Feels

    Forgotten Man

    You Got Lucky

    I Won’t Back Down

    Free Fallin’

    Walls

    Don’t Come Around Here No More

    It’s Good To Be King

    Crawling Back to You

    Wildflowers

    Learning to Fly

    Yer So Bad

    I Should Have Known It

    Refugee

    Runnin’ Down A Dream

     

    You Wreck Me

    American Girl

     

    07.21.17

     

    Rockin’ Around With You

    Mary Jane’s Last Dance

    You Don’t Know How It Feels

    Forgotten Man

    Into The Great Wide Open

    You Got Lucky

    I Won’t Back Down

    Free Fallin’

    Swingin’

    Don’t Come Around Here No More

    It’s Good To Be King

    Crawling Back to You

    Wildflowers

    Learning to Fly

    Yer So Bad

    I Should Have Known It

    Refugee

    Runnin’ Down A Dream

     

    You Wreck Me

    American Girl

    General