Tom Petty will play Wildflowers in full on 2017 tour

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By ( Classic Rock ) published

Expanded version of Tom Petty's Wildflowers will be followed by tour on which album will be played in its entirety

Tom Petty
Tom Petty (Image credit: Getty)

Tom Petty says he will play 1995 album Wildflowers in full on a future tour – despite previously saying he had no interest in full album shows.

Petty will re-release the album in an expanded package that will include a batch of previously unheard material. Petty and producer Rick Rubin originally envisioned Wildflowers as a double-length release, but instead it was issued as a 15-track record, with a number of extra tracks left on the shelf.

Last year, Petty released one of those songs – Somewhere Under Heaven. And with the re-release on the horizon, Petty says he will play the entire album on tour, as it was originally meant to be presented.

He tells Rolling Stone: “That album was really about sound in a big way. I would like to go out there and perform the entire album as it was originally conceived with all of the songs.”

On why he has gone back on his opinion that he wouldn’t consider playing an album in full, he adds: “I’ve changed my mind because nobody has ever done something like this where you’re previewing the second part of a never-released album. How often does that happen? It’s old and new at the same time.”

No release date or exact details have yet been revealed, but Petty says it will include at least six never-before-heard tracks.

“There’s probably six songs that nobody has heard,” he says. “There’s 11 or 12 new songs on the album. I think people are going to like it a lot. I like it a lot.”

Petty’s side-project Mudcrutch released their second album this year.

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Stef Lach

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.