The Guardian (UK)
13th Dec 2016

The American rock band return for their only European show in 2017, bringing the Fleetwood Mac star with them as support

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut album release with a headline appearance at the British Summer Time Hyde Park series.

At the London event on Sunday 9 July, the American rock band will perform their only European show in 2017. Supporting them on the night will be folk-rock group the Lumineers and Petty’s longtime friend and former collaborator, Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks. “In 1976, I’d been in Fleetwood Mac for about a year when I heard Tom Petty’s debut,” Nicks told Rolling Stone in 2010. “I became such a fan that if I hadn’t been in a band myself, I would have joined that one.”

Petty’s appearance will be the second visit he and the Heartbreakers have made to the UK in 20 years. Their last was in 2012, when they headlined the Isle of Wight festival and two shows at the Royal Albert Hall.

This year sees the anniversary of Tom Petty’s debut album with the Heartbreakers, a self-titled release which came out in November 1976. Petty has since released 16 albums, a number of hit singles such as Free Fallin’, Don’t Come Around Here No More, You Got Lucky, You Don’t Know How It Feels, I Won’t Back Down, Listen to Her Heart, Don’t Do Me Like That, and has earned 18 Grammy nominations through the years. As well as being part of the Travelling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, he and the Heartbreakers toured with Dylan as his backing group in 1986 and 1987. They also played on Nicks’s first two solo records.

James King, senior vice president of the event organisers AEG Live, described the evening as a “one-night-only experience direct from the music gods”.

“Tom Petty’s UK fans will feel blessed to see him and the Heartbreakers in such a rare appearance in this country,” King said. “Celebrating their 40th anniversary with them is their friend and true icon Stevie Nicks. Music does not get better than this.”

Also announced as headliners for the other nights of the series are Kings of Leon, Green Day, Phil Collins and Justin Bieber.