While the music business in general is currently in the doldrums, one area is thriving \u2014 tribute bands. San Diego\u2019s club scene has been practically overrun with groups playing entire sets dedicated to one iconic band or another. While this has been a mixed blessing for artists playing original music, for music fans it\u2019s a different story. Tribute bands can be the next best thing to seeing your favorite act. This is especially true when they are as solid a bunch of performers like Full Moon Fever, which performs at Dream Street on Aug. 28. The five-piece band has been together for two years, uniting informally. “The band started as a bunch of friends jamming in the garage,” said drummer Paul Talanian. “On one occasion, we ended up playing Tom Petty songs all night. It sounded pretty good, so we decided to go for it.” The quintet is rounded out by keyboardist Mick Matuszkiewicz, lead guitarist Ed Posnak, bassist Ken Titilah and a frontman who coincidentally has the same name as long-time Petty collaborator and fellow Traveling Wilbury, Jeff Lynne. “I\u2019m not sure how many people are that into Petty\u2019s background to get the connection,” Talanian said. “But it is quite a coincidence.” Though the band plays deep catalog from Petty\u2019s albums, so far it hasn\u2019t added any Wilbury\u2019s songs. “That\u2019s something we\u2019ve been meaning to do. We\u2019ve actually worked on a version of \u2018Handle With Care\u2019 and \u2018End of the Line,\u2019 but they haven\u2019t made it to a stage set yet,” Talanian said. Talanian said the biggest crowd pleasers are pretty obvious. “We try to play a bit of everything, but you\u2019re stuck doing the hits because that\u2019s what the audience is most familiar with and really wants to hear,” said Talanian. He cites “Break Down” and “Free Fallin\u2019” as two specific live favorites. “The stuff that\u2019s gotten radio airplay always gets the biggest reaction, but we can play at least a couple of songs from each album, including more obscure songs such as \u2018Rhino Skin\u2019 from the Echo album,” Talanian said. “They always go down fine but, as you\u2019d expect, it\u2019s the hits that really get a crowd moving.” Full Moon Fever does play the occasional non-Petty tune, but only if he recorded it. “We have fun with that sort of thing,” Talanian said. “We\u2019ve mixed in things like The Byrds\u2019 \u2018Feel A Whole Lot Better\u2019 or the Beatles\u2019 \u2018Taxman,\u2019 as they can be found on his albums as well. Crowds always love to hear a Beatles song,” Talanian said. The band strives for accuracy, but skips costuming when it comes to their live performances. “With us, it\u2019s just the music,” Talanian said. “Our goal is to play the songs as close to the studio album version as possible. Unlike some bands, we don\u2019t put our own spin on the music or create new versions. We try to replicate the feeling of his live shows.” While some might find playing one artist\u2019s music limiting, Talanian is of a different opinion. “We don\u2019t see it that way because there is so much to choose from,” Talanian said. “I wouldn\u2019t call Petty\u2019s music eclectic, because it\u2019s all pretty much straight-ahead rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. But we try to mix things up. “Certainly, whenever a new album comes out, we jump in and add songs to the set as quickly as we can,” he added. “Petty has a big catalog of songs, so there is a lot of space and variety.” Full Moon Fever performs at 9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 28 at Dream Street, 2228 Bacon St. The show is for those 21 and up. Cover TBD. For more information, visit www.pettyband.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the music business in general is currently in the doldrums, one area is thriving \u2014 tribute bands. San Diego\u2019s club scene has been practically overrun with groups playing entire sets dedicated to one iconic band or another. While this has been a mixed blessing for artists playing original music, for music fans it\u2019s a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":282325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Full Moon Fever as Petty as they come","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11561,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-peninsula-beacon","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}