Thanks to an alert reader and some research, we see that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers land in Chicago for a July 2 gig at the United Center, but have a wide open slate the week previous.
On its Web site, Summerfest posed the question, " What band(s) would you like to see at Summerfest 2008?" and Petty's name up came up frequently and one respondent went so far as to say that Petty & the Heartbreakers,"should be the official band of Summerfest."
Considering that the tour already takes Petty and company all across the country and the Midwest -- including Indiana, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Michigan, it seems like it's not a long shot to guess that Summerfest is at least talking to Petty's people.
Petty has played the Big Gig no fewer than six times in the past decade.
Anyway, don't you think that if Petty wasn't playing at Summerfest, Harley would have nabbed him to join Springsteen at its 105th anniversary party?
Of course, Summerfest won't comment -- it never does until there's an official announcement, for obvious reasons -- and there's absolutely no proof that this is a done deal, but we'd guess the odds are pretty good.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
