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For those familiar with This Is Spinal Tap<\/em><\/a>, the 1984 “mockumentary” about a metal band struggling to succeed, you’ll likely remember one of the film’s funniest scenes in which\u00a0bassist Derek Smalls becomes trapped in a small pod during one of the band’s shows.<\/p>\n Something remarkably similar happened to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers<\/a> during their 1995 Dogs With Wings tour, in support of Petty’s 1994 solo album Wildflowers<\/em><\/a>. On the very first evening of the trek in Louisville, Kentucky, a large golden-winged dog was floated out above the audience during “It’s Good to Be King,” only for the set-piece to malfunction and get stuck above everyone’s heads. It was, to put it mildly, distracting.<\/p>\n You can see footage of the dog below in a clip posted by the Petty estate.<\/p>\n READ MORE:\u00a0<\/b>Tom Petty Album Opening Songs Ranked<\/a><\/p>\n Typically, Petty kept a tight and well-oiled schedule, especially with decades of performing experience under his belt. “When you’re on a tour, it becomes very routine,” he recalled in the 2005 book Conversations With Tom Petty<\/em><\/a>. “Tours are very organized. Everything’s done by the book.”<\/p>\n Which doesn’t mean there isn’t room for error or the possibility that something, in this case an enormous golden dog, could go wrong.<\/p>\n “Look, if you’re going out in front of 20,000 people and you’re not nervous, there’s something wrong with you,” he said. “You know? You’re not plugged in somewhere if you’re not nervous.”<\/p>\n Though the below clip states that the dog was retired that night, “never to fly again,” a Chicago Tribune<\/em> review from around this time notes its presence at the United Center.<\/p>\n “A good-natured tribute to Willie Dixon, ‘I Just Wanna Make Love to You,’ was a bit beyond the band,” the review\u00a0(via thepettyarchives.com<\/a>) said in March of 1995, “but ‘It’s Good to Be King’ brought the night’s one true embarrassment: A statue of a flying dog was trolley-lined over the audience while a mirror ball spun for no apparent reason.”<\/p>\n Later reviews that fail to mention the dog suggest that it was indeed removed from the show. The Dogs With Wings tour lasted until Oct. 8, 1995, with a closing performance in New Orleans.<\/p>\n “I thought touring might feel like a chore at first,” Petty told the Tuscaloosa News<\/a><\/em>\u00a0a few days before the tour ended, noting that prior to Dogs With Wings, he had not toured in approximately three and a half years, “that I would need a period of adjustment since I’ve been in one place for two years making Wildflowers<\/em>, but it came back really quickly.”<\/p>\n There’s a common thread running through Tom Petty’s catalog, and it’s the Heartbreakers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe Rest of the Dogs With Wings Tour<\/h3>\n
The Best Song From Every Tom Petty Album<\/h2>\n