Tom Petty In L.A.

LOS ANGELES (Tom Petty & Heartbreakers Fans Website) - The anti-corporate sentiments on Tom Petty's new record, The Last DJ, are necessary and noble, but the songs themselves sometimes suffer from a blunt message (best described as "Clear Channel Sucks!"), a lack of intensity, and a too-pervasive air of self-importance.

Those three issues could also be applied to Petty and longtime backup band the Heartbreakers' show at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Oct. 15). Despite its best efforts to be what album inspiration Jim Ladd called in his band intro "a piece of rock and roll history," it seemed more like the kind of label marketing ploy that Petty's new tunes rail against.

The show was simulcast to movie theaters and radio stations across the country (a move echoing Korn's Untouchables rollout earlier this year), and -- as crane cameras swept through the auditorium and the house lights stayed on -- it felt, at times, like the cross-country viewers were more important than the actual audience. That thought ruminated throughout the show as a 40-piece orchestra was inaudibly conducted by producer/L.A. scenester Jon Brion. Hopefully, the at-home crowd could hear the violin sweeps and quiet horn arrangements lost to those in the arena.

The Last DJ, which debuts at No. 9 on The US Albums this week, was played in full as the band's set, illuminating both the album's strengths and, ultimately, its weaknesses as well. Strong songs such as the bad-guy CEO rocker "Joe," and the more muted "Blue Sunday" translated well, augmented by song-specific videos playing on huge, wave-shaped screens and lighting rigs behind the band. But some tunes -- the wordy "Money Becomes King" and the off-topic "When a Kid Goes Bad" -- suffered from their coarse approach and lack of energy, losing their meaning as the cameras swept in for close-ups.

Petty seemed more enthusiastic during the encore, a quartet of older songs that were played with a raucous energy barely apparent in The Last DJ set. Perhaps if Petty and his band had infused the live performance of the new album's songs with the same sense of fun as their loose, show-closing run through of "You Wreck Me," the music-for-music's-sake message would have seemed more legit. Under the glare of the bright lights, though, most of the set seemed like music-business as usual.