Heartbreakers

It's been eight years since Tom Petty made an album with the Heartbreakers, the esteemed band that the straw-haired rocker's been touring with since the 1970s and will back him up when they play the Wachovia Center on July 31 and Aug. 1. In the interim between their last studio album, The Last DJ , in 2002, and the bluesy Mojo (Reprise . ), which comes out Tuesday, however, the 59-year-old Florida native has hardly been idle. Petty has seen his stature grow as the most consistently pop-savvy of an elder generation of '60s-schooled American rockers.

With more than 30 years of experience and a long string of smash hits, Tom Petty and his veteran Heartbreakers nailed every nuance as they charged through nearly 20 songs at a packed Wachovia Center on Thursday night. Wearing a beard and velvet blazer, Petty displayed his usual easygoing attitude, belying the bracing megawatt anthems at his fingertips. A line from "Mary Jane's Last Dance" came to mind as the Heartbreakers, defined by lead guitarist Mike Campbell's tight work, tore into material from the last few decades: "You never slow down / You never grow old. " That sleepy tune came early in the set, just after the punchy opener "You Wreck Me. " Following "I Won't Back Down" and the Damn the Torpedoes gem "Even the Losers," Petty wryly told the audience, "We've got a lot of singers out there.

A classically trained pianist who writes songs that are sometimes playfully quirky and sometimes complexly arty, Regina Spektor has a habit of going on the road to open for rock-and-roll dudes. In 2003, she opened for the Strokes on her first tour, which included a stop at the Tower Theatre, where she will headline Saturday. She just wrapped up a stint opening for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. "I feel like since [the tour began in] Denver, I've just gone to the University of Awesome for a few weeks," she said from Austin, Texas, on the last date of the Heartbreakers' tour.

The celebrated musical union of Bob Dylan with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will be ringing out the rock July 19 at the Spectrum. The Dylan/Petty and Heartbreakers union was first consummated last summer at Farm Aid, and the combine recently toured Japan, Australia and New Zealand. In each concert, Dylan performs a set backed by Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Petty also leads a set of his own material. In a recent interview, Petty called the union "a natural. It's pretty obvious that we've always been fans of Dylan's work, and we came together very empathetically.

The Los Angeles night is the jeweled blue of lapis. The air is perfumed with the scent of jasmine and Fatburgers. And that hum, it's the sound of male bonding. Bounding their way through gyms and galleries, bars and boudoirs, are the Heartbreakers, Blue and Eli (Peter Coyote and Nick Mancuso), bachelors who collect beauties methodically, the way boys collect marbles. Best friends since childhood, the struggling artist and the successful businessman are confidants, helpmeets and, most of all, competitors in skirt- chasing.

Dependability has its downside. Just look at Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. For 30 years they've been a model of consistency and integrity. Classic albums like Wildflowers, Full Moon Fever (technically, solo Petty discs), and Damn the Torpedoes weren't return-to-form follow-ups after putrid flops, but part of a succession of good-to-great records. You've never heard "Runnin' Down a Dream" in a Chevy ad - Petty refuses to license his music for commercials. Lest we forget, Hard Promises from 1981 was almost called $8.98 because Petty's label tried to jack up the suggested retail price from $8.98 to $9.98 (it caved)

"Heartbreakers," a drama starring Peter Coyote, Nick Mancuso, Carol Wayne and Kathryn Harrold. Written and directed by Bobby Roth. Running time: 100 minutes. An Orion release. At the Roxy Screening Room. 'Heartbreakers" is an interesting, off-beat movie that deserved a better fate. Shot in 1984, the film never got a national release. Instead, it's been intermittently dripped over the country, only now arriving in Philadelphia. The subject of the film - male bonding and its discontents - is familiar, but less so is the dark wit brought to it by director/screenwriter Bobby Roth.

If there were a special Oscar for pain and suffering, Ray Liotta would be this year's shoo-in. Forced to dine on his own brain in "Hannibal," Liotta fares no better in "Heartbreakers," where he's stripped to his undies, tied to a bed and blackmailed by a fat hotel maid who threatens to sit on his head unless he agrees to an exhorbitant tip. In the upcoming "Blow," the former leading man dyes his hair gray to play father (ouch!) to 39-year-old Johnny Depp, who, as a paranoid coke dealer, makes you wish you were watching Liotta in "GoodFellas.

Music Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers / Buddy Guy. Tom Petty pits Mojo, his exercise in Chess Records blues and Allman Brothers jams, against Buddy Guy's half-century-plus experience in blues-guitar heroics (Eric Clapton has called Guy his favorite guitarist). Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Buddy Guy play Saturday and Sunday night at 7:30 at the Wells Fargo Center (formerly the Wachovia Center), 3601 S. Broad St. Saturday sold out. Sunday tickets: $52.50-$128. Information: 800-298-4200, www.livenation.

If you're wondering how six middle-aged musicians - two balding, one paunchy, and their leader showing jowls - could whip an arena full of people into a rafter-shaking frenzy 'round about 11 on a school night, just watch Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers blaze a vapor trail through the ending of "Runnin' Down a Dream" sometime. Petty's highway jam put a fevered exclamation point on the band's regular set Tuesday at a nearly sold-out First Union Spectrum, and set the stage for a dizzying encore of "You Wreck Me," Chuck Berry's "Carol," and a spry "American Girl.

A classically trained pianist who writes songs that are sometimes playfully quirky and sometimes complexly arty, Regina Spektor has a habit of going on the road to open for rock-and-roll dudes. In 2003, she opened for the Strokes on her first tour, which included a stop at the Tower Theatre, where she will headline Saturday. She just wrapped up a stint opening for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. "I feel like since [the tour began in] Denver, I've just gone to the University of Awesome for a few weeks," she said from Austin, Texas, on the last date of the Heartbreakers' tour.

St. Joseph's had to battle back for much of the second half on its home court Wednesday night against Northern Iowa. The Hawks thought they might have at least forced overtime in their opening-round NIT game when Ronald Roberts dunked with 7 seconds to play. But Roberts was late retreating on defense and had to foul the Panthers' Seth Tuttle to keep him from making a layup. Tuttle hit the two free throws with 1.3 seconds to play to give Northern Iowa a 67-65 victory, ending the Hawks' season at 20-14.

Former 76ers guard Andre Miller is one of the more easygoing players in the NBA. He laughs a lot, and very rarely does Miller have a negative word to say about anyone, especially his old Sixers teammates. But anyone who saw Miller almost single-handedly end the 76ers' home winning streak at six games Wednesday night at the Wells Fargo Center might think that Miller has nothing but loathing and malice in his heart for a team he played just a little over two seasons for before leaving via free agency.

An Intimate Life By Lisa Chaney Viking. 464 pp $27.95 Reviewed by Elizabeth Wellington Women's wardrobes would be oh-so-cumbersome, not to mention boring, without the contributions of the great Parisian designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. Chanel gave us the little black dress, gaudy layers of pearls, and the fitted tweed suit. Most important, she popularized predecessor Paul Poiret's early-1900s frocks that featured straighter silhouettes and shorter hemlines.

Paul Breen Sr. was at Veterans Stadium with his dad for "Black Friday," a heartbreaker of a 1977 playoff game that killed the season of a Phillies team billed as the best of its era. "People thought we had that game won," said Breen, 54, of Northeast Philadelphia. "Leaving that ballpark, I remember the silence. People were crying. " Exactly 34 years later, it felt eerily similar at Citizens Bank Park, where Breen worked alongside his son Paul Jr. as ushers in Section 309. They watched glumly as the Phillies lost Game 5 of the National League Division Series and their hopes for a World Series.

My Morning Jacket / Neko Case My Morning Jacket and Neko Case share a deep, abiding appreciation for the power of reverb. Case and MMJ's Jim James (or, as he now prefers, Yim Yames) possess two of the most flexible and dynamic voices in rock; their voices soar like Roy Orbison's, and they soar higher on the wings of the almighty reverb. Both MMJ and Case have developed from alt-country beginnings into something more mystical and wide-ranging, MMJ working elements of soul, reggae, and catchy pop into their guitar jams, Case favoring torch songs and fablelike narratives (she saves her power-pop proclivities for the New Pornographers)

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - At almost the exact moment that the clock hit zero, the skies opened up, a downpour saturated the field, and lightning forced the entire complex at Rutgers University to be evacuated. Fortunately for the Moorestown girls' lacrosse team, the Quakers didn't have to hang around for long after a heartbreaking 10-9 loss to Ridgewood on Saturday in the Tournament of Champions final. The rain, never more than a drizzle during the game, was like a cruel metaphor for the contest that had just occurred.

Strange or not, no matter how crazy it seemed on the surface, even during a stretch when his head was buried in his hands, and when those hands could be spotted trembling ever so slightly, Dom Riverso had to keep reminding himself. It's only a game. Sure, that's a cliché. But phrases/statements achieve cliché status only when they're completely true and Riverso, a 6-1, 165-pound senior at Ss. Neumann-Goretti High, can relate. "Live life to the fullest. You never know what's going to happen," Riverso said.

RICHMOND, Va. - Forgive Drexel coach Bruiser Flint if he doesn't head to sunny Richmond for summer vacation this offseason. "They're not exactly kind to me down here," Flint said Saturday after his fifth-seeded Dragons lost to fourth-seeded Virginia Commonwealth in the quarterfinals of the Colonial Athletic Association men's basketball tournament. With a fired-up crowd bursting for hometown VCU and a second-half free-throw differential of 25-3, Richmond Coliseum was indeed a lion's den for Drexel.