Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008 • Susanville resident helps in Super Bowl halftime show

Publisher’s note: This story originally appeared in the Tuesday, Feb, 12, 2008 edition of the Lassen County Times.

Just when most of us were busy dipping another crispy tortilla chip in that big bowl of chunky guacamole and waiting for legendary rock stars Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to kick off the halftime show at Super Bowl XLII, a Susanville resident was hard at work making sure the show’s opening moments came off without a hitch.

As Petty and company cranked out the opening bars of “American Girl,” the song that closed the band’s 1976 eponymous debut album, Susanville resident Suzi Blackwood was leading the charge at the front of a Gibson Flying V guitar that pierced the glowing heart-shaped stage in the middle of the darkened stadium with a dazzling blast of pyrotechnics.

Blackwood attends several Tom Petty concerts each year and was asked to participate in the halftime show by Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell through the president of the band’s fan club. She also is a fan of Campbell’s band, the Dirty Knobs.

“It was a once in a lifetime experience,” Blackwood said. “Mike Campbell e-mailed the president of the fan club and asked, ‘Who wants to do this?’ and I said, ‘Me! Me! Me!’”

Actually, Blackwood was only one of about 400 devoted Tom Petty fans who pushed the 16 pieces of the massive stage together in slightly more than four minutes from the end of the first half until the beginning of the halftime show.

She said the original plan called for a flaming Flying V guitar, but that idea was scrapped when the National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell decided to close the top of the University of Phoenix Stadium due to a threat of inclement weather during the ball game.

“The commissioner decided to close the lid,” a disappointed Blackwood said, “so there were no pyrotechnics on our guitar.”

Backwood said she was impressed at the way the NFL managed the halftime show.

“It was interesting to be involved in such a well-planned event,” Blackwood said. “They had it planned down to the second. The NFL is really tight. They’ve done a lot of Super Bowls.”

For example, Blackwood said the volunteer participants had about four minutes to get the pieces of the stage onto the field, and Tom Petty’s four-song set was to last 11 minutes and 39 seconds.

They had to get the stage together in less than six minutes. The goal was four minutes. The fans got it done in 4:42.

When the Flying V guitar made its way across the stadium’s grass, Blackwood said she was “at the front of the big white guitar. We were all dressed in black, so nobody could see us. The whole thing was about teamwork. We had one mission: to get the stage together in four minutes.”

After running the guitar into the stage, Blackwood and the other volunteers changed clothes and joined the fans who ran onto the stage.

She said during the performance, “I was four rows deep, right in front of Mike Campbell.”

Believe it or not, the fans even learned the words to a Tom Petty song so they could sing with the band, and they practiced waving their cell phones and lighters during the rehearsals to get the visual aspect just right.

Blackwood said even though the stadium was full of screaming fans as they were setting up the stage, she didn’t even notice them.

“We had to get it together for Tom,” Blackwood said. “He obviously had a great time.”

In addition to “American Girl,” the band performed three songs from Full Moon Fever, released in 1989 — “I Won’t Back Down,” “Running Down A Dream” and “Free Falling.”

That classic album included performances by George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne — Petty’s band mates in the Traveling Wilburys.

Thor Christensen of the Dallas Morning News ignited a controversy when he suggested Tom Petty lip-synced his performance, but Blackwood said that is a ridiculous assertion.

She said due to the horrible acoustics in such a big stadium, the band used some backing tracks, including a recording of the fans singing with the band. She thought some of the guitar solos also might have been prerecorded. But she is sure Tom Petty sang during the performance.

“Tom Petty did not lip sync,” Blackwood said. “He seemed a little nervous, and a couple of times there was a break in his voice. That wouldn’t have happened if he was lip syncing.”

Unfortunately, the halftime participants did not attend the game. They were bused to the stadium just before halftime and bussed out again as soon as the show was over.