Petty complaint about Super Bowl halftime show

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PHOENIX -- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have had more hits than Tom Brady took all season. Now that I've taken care of the obligatory football reference, I can move on to the real reason most of the Super Bowl journalists showed up Thursday: to check out the rockers who will be doing the halftime entertainment. This has become an annual ritual here, the meet-the-music-legends news conference. It began with Paul McCartney three years ago. Since most of the people covering this event are Baby Boomers -- or have been deluged and conquered by Boomer music -- who could pass up a chance to be in the same room with a real, live Beatle? No one, judging by the standing-room-only crowd. The only surprise was that none of the women screamed and fainted. A few guys maybe, but no women. Anyway, the Rolling Stones followed McCartney to the event the next year, and apparently Mick Jagger was on everyone's bucket list, too. Then came last year. Prince showed up, actually performing, not answering questions -- and wasn't that just what the doctor ordered for a group of people who had been trying to think up something to ask Rex Grossman all week, other than "Why are you here?" So that brings us to this year, and Tom Petty. Now I love Petty's music as much as the next over-the-hill, thick-waisted, hair-losing, sight-faltering guy in this joint. I have the CDs to prove it, and I still turn them up loud in the car, although, granted, it's because I can't hear so well anymore. Certainly Petty and his mates fit the mold of the recent halftime-entertainment choices. That is, they are so old that their first hits, "Breakdown" and "American Girl," appeared in 1976, or one year before Brady did. The band's greatest hits CD came out 15 years ago, and it's been so long since they were actually heartbreakers that a local female TV reporter felt compelled to lie to get him to answer her question. "You are still smoking hot," she said, stunning a couple of hundred other 50-somethings in the room, who suddenly sat up straight and sucked in their stomachs. "Thank you, honey," said Petty, whose skinny bones, pale features and wispy shoulder-length locks aren't really as "smoking hot" as his credentials. He and his band certainly have a monster portfolio: 18 Grammy nominations and a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As halftime entertainment producer Don Mischer put it, the audience "will be singing along with more songs than they ever have." But I think the gods-of-rock train bypassed this year's Super Bowl. Hey, we've been spoiled. A Beatle, the Stones and a Prince show? Come on. Who could follow that holy trinity of Boomer idols? Maybe Bruce Springsteen. But the day the Boss agrees to play "Born To Run" while Patriots and Giants suck oranges and catch their breath, well, let's just say we should also expect Elvis to show up and croon the national anthem beforehand. Maybe Led Zeppelin, but I think they emptied their chamber a few months ago with that one-off reunion concert. I'm sure it will be another 20 years before they muster the energy to get us out of our rocking chairs, throwing our adult Depends on the stage. The golden age of halftime idolatry is taking a break. The Eagles reportedly turned down a chance to play this year, and even they would have been hard-pressed to quicken the heart rate of the middle-aged media here. So we get Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and I'm not complaining, honest. But I'm also guessing that this could have been Fleetwood Mac's year, or the Talking Heads, if they were still talking, or the Cars, if they could still "Drive." Was Kiss busy? Were the Bee Gees booked in Vegas? Was Foreigner on a Journey? Petty was economical with his words, but charming enough about all of it. Someone asked him how hard it was to play a 12-minute "concert" when you have three decades of music to choose from. He said they'd like to play more, but "there's this football game going on." He said he was a very poor athlete and not much of a football fan, except for rooting for the University of Florida Gators, as you might expect from a Gainesville-area native. He also said he and his bandmates didn't hesitate to say "Yes" to the NFL, and he not only doesn't mind playing his old songs, but he also still can get into them. "I always turn up the old ones on the radio," he said. Well, what do you expect? He's getting up there, too.(Contact Gregg Patton at or gpatton@PE.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)