Over the weekend, Bob Dylan paid tribute to his late friend and former bandmate Tom Petty, performing the 1991 track “Learning To Fly” during a performance in Broomfield, Colorado. Taking the opportunity to honor Petty the day after what would have been his 67th birthday, Dylan’s selected track was taken from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ eighth studio album Into The Great Wide Open. “It’s shocking, crushing news,” he told Rolling Stone following Petty’s death on October 2nd. “I thought the world of Tom. He was a great performer, full of the light, a friend, and I’ll never forget him.” Check out fan-shot footage of the “Learning To Fly” cover above.
Bob Dylan is the latest in a string of musicians to pay tribute to Petty on-stage, joining the ranks of the Killers, Jason Aldean, Miley Cyrus, the War On Drugs, and Father John Misty. After much confusion and false reporting, Petty was confirmed dead earlier this month after suffering from a cardiac arrest. “His songs are in the atmosphere,” Steven Hyden wrote in his beautiful obituary for the all-time great songwriter and musician, while Petty’s former bandmates opened up to Rolling Stone on their grief for a recent cover story, guitarist Mike Campbell saying, “I’m just so sad to think that I’m not going to play those songs again.”
