Tom Petty Announces Live Anthology Box Set

You might think after so many years making great rock n’ roll music that Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers would have a few live albums on the books.

But on November 24, Petty and Co. will release just their second (official) live album, Live Anthology, a four-disc set featuring many of Petty’s best performances from 1978 to 2007. The 48-song track list also features some choice covers, including Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil,” the Zombies’ “I Want You Back Again” and James Brown’s “Good, Good Lovin.”

The new collection brings together material culled from hundreds of hours of live concert recordings covering every era of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ tours and represents the best tracks as chosen by producers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Ryan Ulyate.

Fans will be able to bathe in all this live, Tom Petty goodness with a variety of purchase choices:

• The standard edition CD features 48 tracks on four CDs
• There’s a five-CD version sold exclusively at Best Buy; comes with a Blu-Ray disc with all 62 tracks, a DVD of a 1978 New Year’s Eve concert in Santa Monica, a second DVD of Martyn Atkins’ unreleased “400 Days” documentary from the 1995 Wildflowers tour, and a vinyl version of the 1976 Official Live ‘Leg promo album
• A seven LP vinyl box set of 51 tracks mastered directly from the uncompressed 24-bit 96K files and pressed on 180-gram audiophile quality high performance vinyl.
• A re-mastered vinyl of the 1976 Official Live ‘Leg bootleg.

That’s a lot of Tom Petty, but so worth it. The guy (and his band) is a rock n’ roll legend.

He’s also not shy about tapping the digital side of the music experience. On September 29, Petty debuts SuperHighway Tour – a virtual portal where fans can download 24 of the 48 Live Anthology tracks over an eight week time frame leading up to the November 24 release. The website also features band commentary, photos and merchandise.

A free preview of the SuperHighway Tour also starts on September 29, which includes a free download of a track from the 1981 run of shows at Los Angeles’ Forum.

Seriously, Petty’s website is where it’s at – definitely worth a perusal for fans; this is how it’s done when you really want to give the fanbase the very best ‘experience’ possible.