Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers + Stevie Nicks at Hyde Park

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Stevie Nicks
The Lumineers
Hyde Park, 9 July 2017

After a couple of years away, I'm finally back to vast and beautiful Hyde Park, scene of many legendary concerts for me, some sun drenched and some rain soaked, but all filled with great memories. This year's has to have one of the best ever line-ups, even though it's just two artists I'm interested in, but those two - Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks - have been two of the most important in my life and I've dreamed for years of seeing them live together.

The rest of the line-up isn't quite as impressive and we arrive as The Lumineers are on stage playing their biggest hit Ho Hey. They sound good and the screens show the folk rock band lined up at the front of the stage wearing hats, plaid shirts and braces (aside from bassist/cellist Neyla Pekarek who sports a flowery dress). In short, they look every bit the typical Americana group. In a lot of ways the Denver band should be the sort of thing I love and they certainly sound fine as the soundtrack on a sunny day wandering around Hyde Park but, at the same time, I don't feel too bad I didn't see all their set. It's the next act I feel most excited about.

We find the best positions we can for Stevie Nicks. Sadly, the area in front of the stage has been sold as the "diamond circle" and cost over a £100 more (as well as a "gold circle" costing an additional £60), so we are in the cheap "seats" as it were. Since I've seen Stevie from front row and close-up before I'm happy to watch from afar this time but it does remind me of the first time I saw her live (my first concert too) when I was sitting at the back of the stalls in Wembley Arena (still amazing though).

There's obviously a lot of people here just to see her. The Stevie t-shirts were just about sold out when I got there and there are lots of floaty chiffon clothes and even some top hats around. It's no surprise then when the crowd goes crazy as her band take to the stage (including the inimitable Waddy Wachtel on guitar) to the strains of the old Missing Persons' song Destination Unknown.

Stevie walks out in her usual uniform these days of black dress coat, black skirt, gloves and sunglasses. Given we are all sweating out in the crowd it does make me feel even hotter just to look at her. Thankfully she soon takes my mind off her wintry attire by kicking off with Gold And Braid, one of the two best songs (the other being Violet And Blue) to never make it on a Stevie album. It's lively and fun, sounds amazing, and gives me hope the set won't just be all the usual suspects.

She follows this with one of my favourite ever singles, the gorgeous, romance and synth drenched If Anyone Falls.

Stevie may be older and wiser, her voice deeper and more raspy, but so far it feels like seeing her in the early 80s. She doesn't discourage this idea when the first notes of Gypsy start, her first Fleetwood Mac track of the evening. I always think Gypsy never sounds quite right live, it just loses some of that magic, but she still pulls it off, the screen behind her filled with black and white images of the rain, as in the actual Gypsy video.

As per usual, the superb Outside The Rain morphs into Dreams (another huge crowd pleaser) but hearing her sing Enchanted (from The Wild Heart) was more thrilling to me. It was bouncy and fun and there were great images of Stevie (most self-portraits from the early 80s I think), many of which I had never seen before, used on the back screen.

The only new song came next: Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream). Stevie went off stage and emerged wearing a magnificent white wool and fur coat. She looked incredible but I have no idea how she managed it given the heat. It was also the only time she removed her sunglasses and it was great to finally see her beautiful, well made-up eyes.  She explained that Moonlight was inspired by the love story between Bella and Edward in the Twilight movies (it appears she hasn't read the books, thank god) but I remember the 70s demo of the song when it was called Lady From The Mountains, so it can't really be all about that. It is one of the best songs on the In Your Dreams album and it sounded epic and gorgeous tonight, easily matching the older classic material. I would have loved to have heard some more of her recent songs.

Even though we didn't get any more new tracks there were still some truly exciting moments. Stevie explained that during her own shows the music amounted to an hour and a half and then the rest was 45 minutes of her talking, but since her time was limited today she couldn't do that. However, she wanted to talk about the next song a little. She told us how she wrote it back in the Buckingham Nicks days while working as a waitress. "See, dreams do come true. Because 44 years later you can sing a song you thought nobody would ever hear in Hyde Park in London, England!" Then Waddy begins the guitar riff for Crying In The Night, a song I definitely didn't think I'd ever hear live, and of course I get chills. I'm so glad Waddy persuaded her to do this song because it sounds incredible live and even though it's never been sung in the years inbetween, Stevie's voice may have changed, but she can still sing it beautifully.

Another treat for me came with the medley of The Wild Heart/Bella Donna, two title tracks for her best albums. She told us that neither had ever been performed live before (this tour) but Bella Donna was actually performed on her tour in 1981. Still it was fantastic to hear them, especially The Wild Heart, which is such an epic, passionate song. Not surprisingly she didn't let it get to the end part where, on the record, her voice lets loose in the most amazing way (I'm sure she can't do that any more) but I have absolutely no complaints there, it was just wonderful to hear these songs performed live.

Elsewhere, there were other crowd-pleasers such as Stand Back, Edge Of Seventeen (weirdly, with lots of Prince pictures on the back screen) and one of the best Gold Dust Woman performances I've heard from her in a long time. Given that last time she played Hyde Park (in 2011 as support to Rod Stewart) she only got to play nine songs, it was a lovely surprise that not only did she play 13 in her main set but she also returned for an encore to give us Rhiannon ("I can't get rid of her!" she laughed) and a rather lovely and gentle Landslide, giving us an especially sweet and fitting ending to her show.

I always thought Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers weren't as popular in the UK. It's true they first found success here back in the 1970s, but when they were becoming rock legends in the 80s and 90s over in the States, they barely seemed to crack the charts here. During the time I've been a fan this is just the fourth time they've played in the UK. The first time I hadn't started going to gigs yet but I managed to see them twice at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in the late 90s, once at the Royal Albert Hall a few years back and now, joyfully in Hyde Park, where it seems like everyone loves them as much as me. I wonder if Tom Petty even knew how many love him on this side of the Atlantic because even this is his only show in Europe on the band's 40th Anniversary Tour.

Every band member is iconic to me, so when legendary keyboardist Benmont Tench, guitarist Mike Campbell, original bassist Ron Blair and English drummer Steve Ferrone (who has now been in the band longer than original drummer Stan Lynch) walk on stage, I'm excited by the familiar sight of every one of them. Of course Petty comes on last, like Stevie, wearing sunglasses and a bright red shirt with black waistcoat, looking as blonde, bearded and skinny as ever.

"We're celebrating our 40th year together," Petty told us smiling. "So we're gonna look at this show like a giant record and we're gonna drop the needle all over it!"

And that's just what they did! "We're going to do the first song from the first album we ever did and the first place to play it was England!" Petty told us before launching into Rockin' Around With You, bringing things full circle. It was a great opening to a great concert filled with so many Petty favourites.

One of the best Petty songs ever came next, with Mary Jane's Last Dance. This song was all over MTV back in the day thanks to its memorable video with Petty as the creepy undertaker stealing wedding dress-adorned Kim Basinger's body. Clearly I can't have been the only one to have watched that video and listened to the song over and over because already the crowd was singing along to every last word. It was wonderful.

It was pretty much greatest hits from here on: You Don't Know How It Feels, I Won't Back Down, Free Fallin', with Forgotten Man from their last record slipped in without too much disruption.

Petty then tells us "The next song is a request and it's actually me who requested it, but that counts, right?" I'm glad he did because it's one of his most underrated songs, Walls, and I sang along where others looked a little puzzled, but it really sounded fantastic and to my ears at least, every bit as catchy and feelgood as the obvious hits.

After an incredible Don't Come Around Here No More, complete with its psychedelic, sitar-infused opening, the very best part of the night came when Petty introduced "honorary band member" Stevie Nicks and they launched into an amazing Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, a childhood dream coming true for me at long last. They sang their hearts out staring each other down from their microphones and at one point Petty came over to Stevie and laid his hand on her shoulder in a rather sweet moment. "Well, that was fun", Petty said after in pretty much the understatement of the year.

After this Petty announced they were going to do some more songs from the 1994 album Wildflowers, which was fine by me as I love that record. That said, despite It's Good To Be King being one of my favourites -especially the end part - I actually felt this time it went on a little long, while Crawling Back To You was one of the more boring moments of the show and I wish it had been sacrificed in order to bring Stevie back on to sing Insider. That felt like a massive wasted opportunity. But, the song Wildflowers itself, was a lovely acoustic moment and great to hear live.

Learning To Fly proved a crowd pleaser but Yer So Bad was absolutely fantastic: funny and rocking and great to sing along to, it reminded me of what a great lyric writer Petty can be.

Refugee and Running Down A Dream ended the main set on a high note but thankfully the band returned for a couple more: a lively You Wreck Me (featuring some of best Petty lyrics ever) and of course, the wonder that is American Girl, sending us all home into the night with Mike Campbell's amazing Rickenbacker jangling in our ears and hearts.

I find festivals, even day ones, a tiring experience these days but this was worth every second of standing in a dusty, hot field for. I just wish both Petty and Nicks would come back to the UK more, it's clear they are so loved in the UK, I know they would sell out, as this show did today, every time.