Heartbreakers Beach Party

“I’d love to get old and keep hearing these songs on the radio.” - Tom Petty on how he’d define success

Growing up in the suburbs in the late 70s and into the 80s, the midnight movie was a salvation, a place where you could go and gather with your fellow weirdos. There was always Rocky Horror somewhere but a lot of those theaters also used to have the Saturday midnight rock and roll feature. There was a lot of Song Remains the Same and Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii, both of which I hated with every fiber of my being, but being able to convince someone to go with you to one of those meant you had barter for later showings of The Kids Are Alright or The Last Waltz or Rock and Roll High School (although I am reasonably sure that never came to the suburbs and was something I saw at the 8th Street Playhouse, although apparently they couldn’t show the Ramones and the Who together because there was always some damage to the seats). It was something I could convince my parents to go see at the Ridgeway Theater or even in South Norwalk at the SoNo Cinema because it was local and it wasn’t a movie and I wasn’t crossing state lines and there was no alcohol involved? Who knows, I never questioned it or even thought about it too hard lest my brain waves jar the magic forces that convinced my parents to acquiesce and have them change their minds.

I thought about all of that today when I went to see a Sunday matinee showing of Heartbreakers Beach Party, an extended EPK (electronic press kit) that he directed (it’s his directorial debut!) and hosted which was apparently broadcast at 2am on MTV exactly once and never seen again. That means it wasn’t a true EPK because if it had been there would have been VHS tapes sent out and someone would have hung onto them (says the woman who has various EPKs in her attic from her time at Warner Bros.). But enough people saw it that it developed its own mythology and even though allegedly the tapes had been lost, they’ve been rediscovered and cleaned up and were screened in movie theaters twice this week. 

I’ll shatter the mythology: Heartbreakers Beach Party is live footage, footage of Cameron interviewing Tom (and sometimes the rest of the band), and outtakes from the “You Got Lucky” video shoot. It's not as amazing as the myth but it was also well worth the money to go see it in the theater. It’s 90 minutes plus an additional 30 minutes of additional outtakes, and I hope they’re going to release it because there is no reason for them to not let it just be out there. I would definitely watch it again and if I’d seen it on Thursday night I probably would have shown up today to catch what I missed.