Johnny Depp, Sarah Silverman, Ke$ha and Everyone Else Played at Petty Fest Last Night

Katie Bain

Hell freezes over: Ke$ha, Patrick Carney, Austin Scaggs and Johnny Depp

Better Than: Tom Petty tribute bands that Johnny Depp aren't a part of.

See also: Our feature story about Tom Petty's tailor

It was a litany of crowd pleasers last night at Petty Fest, a celebration of the songbook of the SoCal shaman of laid back classic rock. The show was a storm of guitar solos and strange bedfellows as Sarah Silverman, the Eagles of Death Metal, Jenny O, Butch Walker, Harper Simon, Nicole Atkins, Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, the Kings of Leon's Jared Followill, Nick Valensi, Fabrizio Moretti, and Albert Hammond Jr. from the Strokes took the stage for a greatest hits show. Oh and Ke$ha and Johnny Depp (yes that is correct) performed too.

Hosted by Rolling Stone's Austin Scaggs (the son of Boz) and ex Epic Records and Rolling Stone exec Alex Levy, it seemed appropriate that the third installment of Petty Fest (the first two were in New York), would be held here, in a town that inspired many of his songs.

The night went something like this:

9:34pm: Petty Fest's Cabin Down Below collective, (led by Austin Scaggs, there appears to be, like, nine people in this band), are onstage playing "You Wreck Me." I am up in the balcony wishing someone would just hand me a tambourine and invite me onstage already.

9:35pm: Justin Bartha (the guy from The Hangover who isn't Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis or Bradley Cooper) covers "Into the Great Wide Open." It isn't great. Points for trying though! What a great song!

9:38pm: The Eagles of Death Metal take the stage. "I bet they're going to do 'Runnin' Down a Dream'" says a woman wearing a floppy hat. And they do.

9:41pm: The sound production isn't great and no one can hear the "Runnin' Down a Dream" guitar solo except for maybe the guy playing it, which is unfortunate, because it is a righteous F-ing guitar solo.

9:50pm: "If no one plays 'Zombie Zoo' then no one here is a real Tom Petty fan" declares a man at the Jameson-sponsored bar.

9:51pm: He and I drink some Jameson.

10:05pm: Sarah Silverman comes onstage wearing jorts and does a vaguely threatening rendition of "Don't Come Around Here No More." She changes the words to include "fuck you" and something about vaginal herpes. The crowd cheers louder than they have so far all night.

10:09pm: Holy shit. There is a pile of free fried chicken and pulled pork sandwiches in the VIP area.

10:15pm: Singer Nicole Atkins comes onstage and announces that all of the money raised by the event is going to Sweet Relief, which is aiding in the Hurricane Sandy assistance effort. Then she does the Stevie Nicks part of "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" and it sounds legit. What a great song!

10:18pm: Why is no one eating this fried chicken? Is this fried chicken not actually for free?

10:23pm: Rodrigo Amarante from Little Joy and Matt Sorum from Guns 'n Roses and Velvet Revolver tear through "Refugee." The crowd is becoming a bit more animated. It may or may not be all the Irish whiskey.

10:27pm: I eat a chicken leg. "Yes! It is on now!" yells a tall, bearded man standing next to me as he beelines towards the pile of meat.

10:34pm: Ryan Miller from Guster comes out and announces that "it's a lot of A-list and alpha energy" backstage, which seems reasonable as at any given point in the show there has been 8-10 men onstage. Then Miller plays "Wildflowers." (What a great song!) "This is so Guster!" yells the tall bearded man as we stand next to each other, eating chicken and singing along. The whole affair is starting to feel more and more like a backyard BBQ.

10:40pm: All of the women in the audience look like models who live in Topanga Canyon.

Location Info

Venue

Map

El Rey Theatre

5515 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

Category: Music

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