Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
September 6, 1981 [1981-09-06]
Cal Expo Racetrack
Sacramento, California, USA

There a story that goes with this one… I was in San Francisco early afternoon on this day, stopped into Tower Records and asked if they still had tickets for Tom Petty at Cal Expo later that day. He gave me a strange look and went in the back and returned with 2 free tickets that he said had been pinned to the work bulletin board but no one seemed to want. Great already! Drove the 2 hours out to Sacramento from S.F. with my girlfriend. While waiting to get in, we heard Petty & The Heartbreakers soundchecking with Stevie Nicks, so we already knew that she would be appearing. Then we were then further surprised that the opening band was the previously unannounced David Lindley & El Rayo-X. Fantastic! I recorded it all and it hasn’t been traded or digitized until now. It sounds very decent to me with very little close to mics audience noise. When we lost Tom earlier this year I realized that this show had never been transferred due to being misplaced for many years. After a big search, I re-located them and got a bit of time this week to get them out you… Enjoy and Happy New Year to all! – grner1 [December 30, 2017]

CD1 – 63:13
101 [00:37] announcer intro
102 [04:16] American Girl >
103 [03:33] Listen To Her Heart
104 [05:59] A Thing About You
105 [00:35] talk
106 [05:37] Here Comes My Girl
107 [00:33] talk
108 [04:39] The Waiting
109 [02:37] I Need To Know
110 [02:39] Cry To Me instrumental segue
111 [03:30] Don’t Do Me Like That
112 [03:39] Louie Louie
113 [00:59] Stan and Phil intros
114 [05:05] Nightwatchman
115 [06:04] Benmont intro / Woman In Love
116 [01:01] talk
117 [06:11] Insider [with Stevie Nicks]
118 [00:46] Tom’s Stevie intro
119 [04:53] Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around [with Stevie Nicks]

CD2 – 42:47
201 [07:25] Kings Road
202 [08:54] Breakdown
203 [05:10] Refugee
encores:
204 [11:10] Shout
205 [03:37] Good Good Lovin’
206 [06:19] Shadow Of A Doubt
207 [00:12] final thanks and applause

Tom Petty – vocals, guitar
Mike Campbell – lead guitar
Benmont Tench – keyboards
Howie Epstein – bass
Stan Lynch – drums
Phil Jones – percussion
with guest Stevie Nicks – vocals where noted

Lineage: 2 x ElectroVoice RE10 microphones > Dolby B encoded Sony TC-D5 cassette master with Maxell UD XLII cassette master.

Transfer [2017-12-21]: Nakamichi Dragon (Dolby B decoded) > Macintosh with Digidesign Audiomedia III card > Pro Tools (minor “nip and tuck” edits, normalization and tracking – no DNR or EQ) > AIFF files > xACT (FLAC level 8 files, tagged with sector boundaries verified). This was the complete performance. It’s tracked for audio CDR’s but plays seamlessly.

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