How Long Is Tom Petty Concert?
Tom Petty is one of the most popular and productive rock singers and songwriters of the second half of the twentieth century. Petty topped the charts and enthralled fans with his band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers releasing a host of popular tracks in his rather illustrious four-decade musical career—Free Fallin, I Won’t Back Down, Learning to Fly, etc. He was also well known for his high-energy concert performances that got the masses on their feet almost every night. But how many minutes, hours, or days could fans look forward to a Tom Petty concert?
An average concert by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ranged between 80 and 120 minutes and did not include encores. Petty was keen on ensuring that he delivered a good show from the initial moments of the concert up to the end on every tour he embarked on over the years. He had great presence when performing, performing energetic two to two-and-a-half hours of set with songs and antics.
During his extensive live performing background since the late 1970’s, Petty performed in tens of headlining shows in big arenas, stadiums and in various international music festivals. He insisted that every single paying fan needed to get the best of what he had to offer during the course of the performance. The length and quality of his concerts were a point of professional duty for him throughout it all.
Throughout the late 1980s through the early to mid-nineties, Petty and the Heartbreakers could always be counted on to deliver between twenty and twenty-four songs per show. He also ensured that in his sets, he played the latest songs from the new albums and the songs that the fans wanted from his growing discography. People expected him to entertain them with songs and show them that it can be quite diverse from beginning to end.
The average setlist might begin with 2 to 4 highly energetic straight-ahead rock songs to get the audience going from the get-go. He would then play the regular chart-topping tunes with popular album tracks for the next hour before taking time to change the mood of the party by strumming the guitar. The last forty-five minutes to an hour would be a non-stop mix of favorite songs that would put everyone in a state of delight before the grand finale.
Petty also enjoyed charming spectators with deep cuts or songs that fans could only hope to see him perform live one more time. His concerts could sometimes be too far for dedicated fans. During their famous 2006 concert at Bonnaroo, the band stunned the audience by performing non-stop for over 4 hours until dawn! He said after the event that he was overwhelmed by the energy of the crowd, to the extent that he did not even realize that time was up. Until the last stage of his performances, Petty wanted to ensure that the fans would get their money’s worth in terms of a worthwhile concert.
In Tom Petty’s last tour with the Heartbreakers in 2017 before his sudden demise, the band performed most sets to their standard duration of two to two-and-a-half hours. The last shows of his nearly four-decade-long career in Gainesville, Florida, were mostly an hour and a half in total. Hometown audiences that night were special and were able to witness twenty-seven of his greatest hits. And it turned out to be a good summary and send-off of Petty as an epic concert artist and performer.
So in total, the average Tom Petty fan could anticipate the star being on stage for at least two hours minimum and at the full price for the ticket, excluding a few extra songs as encores to end the night. That two-hour main set would be filled with some of the best-known songs and many new ones, along with some surprises and, of course, a lot of heartland rock energy. Every night for the past forty-plus years, Petty made sure that fans were getting their money’s worth in terms of rock and roll when the Heartbreaker band took the stage. That Tom Petty was able to maintain mastery of the concert stage well into his 60s was one of the key reasons why his fan base remained so zealous until the very end.
