Tom Petty To Break Hearts At Super Bowl Halftime Show

Like a small handful of other unfortunates on the planet Earth, I am holding up what seems to be my annual tradition of having to work on Super Bowl Sunday, and up until now I wasn’t that disappointed about it. I’m one of “those people” who doesn’t follow football, or even care about football, being in it for the party, the commercials, and of course the illustrious halftime show.

Imagine the ache in my bitter heart when VOA News reported Friday that Super Bowl XLII’s installment of halftime, the annual hit-and-run explosion of American culture and decadence, will feature one of the most American party-music icons of the century, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Oh, how appropriate.

57-year-old Petty and his long-standing band will have 12 minutes to bring the inhabitants of the Glendale, Arizona stadium, along with millions of living rooms around the world, on as complete a tour of the band’s catalogue as they can, VOA reported.

“We tried to pick the [songs] that would take you somewhere in that amount of time,” Petty told reporters Thursday. “It's a little bit of a challenge, and we've had to kind of rearrange some things, make some a little bit shorter to fit in. But I think we've chosen a good set.” Though the internet is rife with speculation, the set list hasn’t been announced, at least nowhere obvious. His act follows previous Super Bowl performances from such heavyweights as The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, U2 and Prince.

Petty picked up a passion for rock and roll after meeting Elvis Presley at age 10 and seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan three years later. His band released their self-titled debut album in 1976. Since then Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have sold more than 50 million albums, being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Finally in 2008, one overzealous writer vowed to stalk the internet for recorded footage like a puma on a rabbit.


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