Marcie Campbell, wife of legendary American rock guitarist Mike Campbell, is out on tour with her husband this summer. And, just like his band The Dirty Knobs, she’s making some noise every night, all right.
At the Columbus, Ohio, venue KEMBA Live! – where the Knobs made a Saturday night stop on August 2 – Mrs. Campbell joined the band on stage mid-show with a timely announcement.
“It’s just normal noises in here!” she boomed, leaning into her husband’s vocal microphone with a bright smile. And, of course, the Rickenbacker 12-string-armed guitarist and the band tore into a soaring rendition of the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ classic “Even the Losers” right after that.
Keen-eyed – and eared – Tom Petty and Mike Campbell fans would, of course, spot the inside joke of Mrs. Campbell recreating her random line preserved for posterity at the beginning of “Losers” on the classic 1979 Heartbreakers’ album Damn the Torpedoes. But since Mike & The Knobs were in a supporting slot for the contemporary country rock band Blackberry Smoke and not playing to masses of their own faithful fans, the joke obviously wouldn’t have hit home with every audience member. Still, there were enough longtime Petty and Campbell fans at the show (You could see a wide variety of Petty-themed T-shirts being worn proudly around the outdoor arena.) for the joke to get a wave of chuckles and applause from the audience.
Let’s clear up one thing right now: Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs are not a Tom Petty tribute act. With three crisply rocking albums to their name since the 2020-21 release Wreckless Abandon and a new one in the oven, The Knobs have their own distinctive recipe. They pulse with a blend of Stones-y swing and swagger and power chords, Chuck Berry-like three-chord vamps, British Invasion-era power pop, rootsy Americana, blues, and soul, and defiant southern rock guitar snarl, all flavored with stacked vocal harmonies, arpeggiated chord mid-sections and gritty psychedelic twang bar flashes. But, yeah. . .the shimmering aura of Campbell’s longtime “fellow traveler” named Tom still happily dances over, under, around and through their sound.
The Knobs kicked off their compact, one-hour set with the grinding “Dirty Job” from their second album, External Combustion. Clearly, this song – with its refrain “It’s a dirty job/someone’s gotta do it. . .might as well be me.” – served as a blatant mission statement from the band. (“You want us to open for you? OK – we’ll open for for you!”) The fact that The Knobs often have the luxury of stretching out for their full, two-hour shows as headliners makes their task of being only a warm-up act a worthy challenge. And, only seconds into the first song, they left no doubt that they were happily on the case.
Their second song, the anthemic “Dare to Dream,” continued with the same crackling energy as the opener but with a darker, George Harrison-like, modal verse melody, shadowed by slide guitar.
What makes the song so triumphant and anthemic is the harmonic switch into major key on the choruses and the lyrical encouragement for us all to live – in spite of so many harsh realities – in the present. “These are the best of times/This is the good life/And all you dare to dream/can come true.”
Although I already knew the song very well, hearing those words delivered so passionately made it seem like I was really hearing those lyrics for the first time. Sage advice, you might say, that we all could use right now. And, as Mr. Harrison himself would say, that message is: “Be. Here. Now.”
More fun followed with more Knobs’ songs, including a loopy, change-of-pace, country-blues ditty, named “Fuck That Guy.” This laid-back, “Stuck in the Middle with You” kinda groove with quirky, wistful slide guitar intervals paints a portrait of unsavory characters that could be almost anyone in your life – male or female – who deserve the one-finger salute. And, in the live setting, Campbell and The Knobs turned it into a full audience participation moment, encouraging the women as well as the men to join in on the choruses and to vent their venom toward all of the miserable d-bags in their lives. And – heh – it sure sounded like the ladies gave it their all!
Midway into the show, and still not a single Heartbreakers’ song had broken its way in, although no one was complaining or calling out for “Refugee.” (Not that I heard, anyway.) For the first few butt-kicking numbers, Campbell had been wielding his white Gibson Firebird six-string, and then came “Innocent Man.” At that point, Campbell reached for his classic, blonde-finish 12-string Rickenbacker, a jangly throwback to his Byrds-infused glory days in the Heartbreakers.
Admittedly, seeing that vintage guitar was a complete fakeout to me. Fully expectant that we were about to hear the first Petty breakout of the night, I brightened and stood a little taller, all dialed in. Far from being a bummer, though, “Innocent Man” was a joyous diversion, into lush, Beatlesque vocal harmonies and chiming-string guitar hooks with ringing and droning Revolver-era psychedelic pop. It was the high point of the show so far!
So, OK, Campbell was apparently just getting warmed up on his Rickenbacker and he was ready to whack us hard-core Petty fans over the head with something chunkier. It was at this point that his wife Marcie came out to make her “special announcement”, and that’s when the special noises started.
She smiled mischievously at the audience after her one-liner and waved, and then the Knobs launched into an soul-stirring version of “Even the Losers.” Campbell made full use of his capabilities on the 12-string Rick. And then, without hesitation, the Knobs galloped onward with a blistering, wah-wah-and-flange-driven version of another Petty fan favorite, “Makin’ Some Noise”, from the early-‘90s Heartbreakers’ album Into the Great Wide Open.
Around this point in the show, some members of the band – including Campbell, bassist Lance Morrison and second guitarist and keyboardist Chris Holt – left the stage after a round of introductions. Remaining, though, was former Heartbreakers’ drummer Steve Ferrone – now a full-time member of the Knobs – who took over the microphone at center stage for some brief storytelling and comic relief.
It was humorous to hear the English drummer relate how unassuming he had been the first time he and Campbell met at a George Harrison show, in London, in 1992.(Ferrone: “Who’s that?” Harrison: “That’s Mike Campbell.” Ferrone: “So who’s that?”). Then, two years later, he found himself on a top-secret studio tryout in Los Angeles with Petty and Campbell and their then-brand-new producer, Rick Rubin.
Ferrone expressed pure wonder at how life had led him from being an in-demand drummer for the stars like Harrison and Eric Clapton to becoming a longtime Heartbreakers member and now a full-fledged member of Campbell’s band. So, as Ferrone’s anecdote showed, the threads of classic rock between Campbell and the pioneers of rock are deeply intertwined. And, as the Knobs’ performance so clearly showed, that heritage lives on.
The Dirty Knobs’ set was more than halfway over at this point. But there were still a few more Knobs’ songs to come, plus another deep Heartbreakers’ cut – the poignant, four-minute FM radio romantic drama, “A Woman in Love” from 1982’s Long After Dark – and a rocked-out cover of Bobby Womack’s “It’s All Over Now.” (That 1964 minor hit song by Womack’s group The Valentinos was, of course, made more famous via the later-1964 recording by the Rolling Stones. But again, it was a standout moment of The Knobs paying tribute to their heroes and classic American music.)
Wrapping up the Knobs’s well-packed one-hour set was another Campbell original, “Southern Boy.” It was another one of those squeaky-tight, hook-filled Southern rockers that put the exclamation point on the end of their whirlwind set. Self-referential to his Florida roots, the song had quite a few musical nods to other pioneers of Americana and Southern Rock shoehorned into this 3-minute vamp. Nice work when you can get it!
While chatting with the audience between songs early in the set, Campbell had extended a friendly invitation to everyone to stick around for the end of Blackberry Smoke’s set. He promised us all that the end of the night would include a big, free-range jam-out, and that there’d be some surprises.
As luck would have it, this writer – also the photographer, as you’ll see with this review – had a “hard stop” to be on the road at the end of The Knobs’ set and had to hustle back down the interstate to Cincinnati. So I could not stay for Blackberry Smoke’s set, and I was not able to witness how free-ranging that final “jam" was going to be. After Campbell’s heads up, I had definite mixed feelings but no wiggle room.
Fortunately, since we live in the Age of the Internet, there is an online reference you may very well know yourself called Setlist.Fm. This site documents the songs performed at many concerts, by many artists. So, just for grins, a day or two ago, I happened to take a look at the setlist for Blackberry Smoke from their Columbus gig, and, lo and behold, I learned exactly what I missed from the big band blowout at the end of the night. Man, do I have regrets now! Click here to enjoy!
To say the least, what this incurable Tom Petty fan missed was the real Petty tribute that the Knobs didn’t deliver during their warm-up slot.As reported, it was a career-spanning, five-song, maxi-block. Songs included two from the Heartbreakers’ 1976 debut album (“Rockin’ Around with You”, “American Girl”), plus “You Got Lucky” from Long After Dark, “Honey Bee” from Petty’s 1994 solo album “Wildflowers”, and the glorious, mind-bending nut rocker from his 1989 Full Moon Fever, “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”
Another advantage in this era of the World Wide Web and streaming media access of YouTube, of course, is that you can dip into some videos from various shows on the tour, including some from that grand finale with all of the members of Blackberry Smoke. You’ll get to see some of the moments from the Knobs’ main set but also get a flavor for the Petty binge that they unleashed so generously in the encore.
Note to self: “Be here now, dude. And, next time. . .Be sure, if you can, to plan on staying until the end.”
