Photo from Weekender, Nov. 4, 2009

Most of this blog post originally appeared on my writing blog, donnatalarico.com, but figured I would post it here, with some follow up about the show below:

From my writing blog which features blurbs about my articles: The November 4, 2009 edition of the The Weekender featured two articles my me. I’ve been a fan, thanks to @SheliTwits, of the Tom Petty Appreciation Band for some time. A life-long Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers fan, I was secretly waiting for a tribute band to pop up locally (I actually have a name for one that I’ve never been able to use because my only musical talent is listening, so instead I turned it into a collection of short stories I want to write), so when I saw a Twitter update in March that Sheli was going to see a Tom Petty Appreciation Band in Scranton, I was like, “What? Where?” I didn’t get to see them that day, but have seen most of their shows since.

When I heard that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers was coming out with a massive collection of live music called the Live Anthology, I thought it’d be perfect timing to cover the local and national angle. I pitched the idea to my editor at The Weekender, and we found out the next Tom Petty Appreciation Band show was going to be at the River Street Jazz Cafe in Plains (basically Wilkes-Barre) on November 6, so he scheduled both my stories for the Wednesday before.

Pat Finnerty, lead singer of the band, was very fun to talk to. I think the story turned out well. It seemed to help draw a huge crowd to the Jazz Cafe also.

Check out the article here: NEPA’s Southern Accents… (But of course, I love how the page looks in print.)

Also, there’s the article on the Tom Petty collection which is available in stores really soon.

Me with Pat Finnerty, lead vocalist for Tom Petty Appreciation band and also bassist for And the Moneynotes.

So– the actual show: These guys rocks. Seriously.  The River Street Jazz Cafe was packed with a huge crowd for the Tom Petty Appreciation Band. Definitely the biggest crowd I have seen there in a while, and in fact a friend of mine who works the door there, said the same thing. After people were warmed up with some drinks, the dance floor was packed. I had a great time with some pals from the Weekender and some other friends from Wilkes and the area that showed up. It was one of those feel good nights that I made some of those mushy tweets and Facebook updates — I was definitely in a happy place. I guess everyone has those songs and artists that put them in that place, and for me, there’s just something about Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. The music is magnetic for me.

So, like I said above, I have had a name idea for a Tom Petty tribute band since college (not telling yet), and since I have no musical talent (except listening), I have been toying with the idea of a novella with the same title. But I have been nothing but thrilled since I heard there was a local Tom Petty appreciation band. My other fave local band, 40 lb. Head does a bunch of Tom Petty, too – and very awesome at that. So, there’s definitely a lot of Tom Petty love in NEPA, for sure. But overall, the show I am writing about, it was just a kick-ass night and one of the best nights out I’ve had in a while. Yeah- think it turned into a 7:00 a.m. night after it was all said and done.

It was also kind of cool to get my first shout-out from a band I’ve wrote about and get a little applause from the crowd, so thanks Pat, for that and for coming over to me before the show to let me know what you and the guys thought of my article. I’ve been writing for the Weekender for, gosh I am am old, about ten years but mostly feature stories and such, so it was cool to do a preview of a local show that I was able to attend.

To find out where the Tom Petty Appreciation Band will be next, become their fan on Facebook here.

Some more pics of the the good people in NEPA that came out for the show for this awesome night:

Me and my favorite Tom Petty Appreciation Band fan and friend, Nikki

Me with James, one of my fave Wilkes creative writing pals.

My friend James' friend, Aaron, Me, & Mike after the show.