Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs Rock Ruth Eckerd!

I have been a fan of lead guitarist Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers since I first saw the group live when I was a student at the University of Florida back in 1981, when Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks joined the Heartbreakers on stage to sing “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and four or five Fleetwood Mac/Stevie Nicks songs during the encores.

After the tragic passing of Petty in 2017, Campbell spent two years (2018-19) as the replacement for Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac, but then started his own band, The Dirty Knobs, in 2020. The new band — currently comprised of Campbell on lead guitar and most of the lead vocals, recent Eagles touring guitarist Chris Holt on guitar, keyboards and vocals, Lance Morrison on bass and former Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone — has put out three albums to date, “with a fourth one in the can,” according to Campbell last night. 

The group’s next-to-last stop on their current tour (the Dirty Knobs play in Jacksonville tonight) was at Ruth Eckerd Hall last night and they put on a show much more laden with solo Petty and Heartbreakers tunes than most of the Dirty Knobs’ previous dates — eleven in all, in fact. Although it was amazing for this 45-year Petty fan to hear so many of those old favorites, I actually would personally have been happier to hear Campbell & Co. play more of the Dirty Knobs’ own catalog.

Considering that Campbell rarely, if ever, even had a mic to sing to on stage when he was with the Heartbreakers, I absolutely love the guy’s voice and his music, as always, is solid rock with many of these songs having that Petty-esque country twang. And, although Mike is credited as a co-writer on dozens of Petty’s classic tunes, my understanding was that Mike would usually write or co-write the music, but Tom handled the majority of the lyrics. So, it’s pretty startling to hear so many songs that Campbell has written and sings himself. 

Among my favorites at last night’s show were the hard-rockin’ but melodic “Dare to Dream” and the country-infused rocker “Wicked Mind,” the super-fun “F–k That Guy,” plus “Irish Girl,” “Shake These Blues,” and “Angel of Mercy,” all of which are from the three Dirty Knobs albums. There were at least 7-8 more of those songs that I wish they played — including the almost Rolling Stones-ish title track,  the funky rocker “Sugar” and the sweet “Anna Lee” from the first Dirty Knobs album, “Wreckless Abandon.” 

Others they didn’t play that I love are the great lyrics and catchy beat of “Dirty Job,” the beautiful duet with Margo Price called “State of Mind” (which sounds like it could be Petty and Stevie Nicks together again), “It Is Written” and “Electric Gypsy” from the second album, “External Combustion,” and “Hands Are Tied,” “Innocent Man” (a completely different song than Billy Joel’s “An Innocent Man”), “Hell or High Water” and “The Greatest” from the newest album, “Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits.” 

If you like Campbell’s “minimalist” guitar from the Petty days, many of these songs are equally as addictive — at least in one editor’s opinion. 

But yes, it also was awesome to hear Campbell’s guitar riffs and belted-out, Petty-like vocals on all of the Petty and/or Heartbreakers tunes, especially on “Love Is A Long Road,” “A Woman In Love (It’s Not Me),” “Don’t Fade On Me,” “You Got Lucky,” “You Wreck Me,” “Runnin’ Down A Dream” and my favorite Heartbreakers song of the evening, “The Best Of Everything” (in duet with super-talented opening act Shannon McNally, a Grammy-nominated Long Islander from Jones Beach).  

Overall, it was an wonderful show and most of the not-quite-sold-out crowd of over 2,000 people seemed to love it as much as Jannah and I did.

Whether you were at the concert or not, if you’re a fan of the Heartbreakers, you have to read Campbell’s recently released book, Heartbreaker: A Memoir — which I was surprised to not see on sale at Ruth Eckerd. It’s an incredible read, ghost-written by Ari Surdoval, and it tells all of the stories of how Campbell came from less than nothing in Jacksonville, to getting a scholarship to the University of Florida, where he met Petty (who wasn’t a student but grew up in Gainesville), who convinced Mike to drop out of U-F, to meeting the other members of the band then-called Mudcrutch, to heading out to Los Angeles and finding stardom with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers — and everything that came since then. I’m sure it must include Campbell’s thoughts on Tom passing away in 2017 — although I haven’t finished reading the book yet. Even so, it’s honestly already one of the best non-fiction memoirs I’ve ever read.

I don’t know what’s next for Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs or when they will return to our area, but all I can say — after literally eight of them last night — is “Encore!”