The Heartbreakers will reunite tonight for the first time since Tom Petty's death at The Americana Music Awards at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on 9/16/26. The Heartbreakers will be joined by Chris Stapleton, who I assume will handle most of, if not all, of the vocals. The show is not on TV, but can be streamed on YouTube. Austin City Limits will be airing a revised version of the show on November 21st.
Here's the entire 32 minute Heartbreakers segment. They only did three tunes: American Girl, Breakdown, You Wreck Me. I thought they sounded pretty damn good, especially considering they haven't played together in 9 years. Of course Chris Stapleton added a lot. Then Adria Petty, Tom's daughter, did a heartfelt spoken word tribute to her Dad. After that, she introduced all of the band members, and several of them also spoke, including Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell. After that, it was a great show, and it introduced me to a lot of very talented artists that I wasn't familiar with, like I'm With Her (an all-female trio), Mon Rovia, Milk Carton Kids, and Kathleen Edwards. Molly Tuttle also performed, and she won Americana Artist Of The Year. Very deserving........I've seen her, she's just incredible. Robert Plant and Brandi Carlisle also performed.