Campaign Archive – Press Release (EN)
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June-1999
PRESS RELEASE（English ver.）
The Waiting is the hardest part…
We are a group of people who are great big fans of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. And our biggest dream is to realize their concert here in Japan. In order to make our dream come true, we formed a group called “Heartbreaker’s Japan Party” and started to take some actions mainly in the world of internet.
Here we have prepared a Press Release “The Waiting is the hardest part.” The purpose of this is to inform people about our activity and to make it notice our sincere thoughts about the band. We hope that you will take some time and look at it. Thank you.
1. The circumstances regarding TP&HB in Japan
It is our deep regret that for the moment, the popularity of TP&HB in Japan is not very high compared to that in USA. Although we hate to admit it we must accept the fact that foreign rock’n roll music itself is not a major factor in present Japanese music scene. (The mainstream of Japanese music scene is Japanese pop music.) Obviously the less popularity of TP&HB in Japan is another reflection of this circumstances.
In this condition it is understandable that the chances for the band to do a concert here becomes small. However we should not jump at a conclusion that Japanese music scene is totally barren, that there is no demand at all for a good rock’n roll music.
Looking back at the past three years, big artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones …etc, have visited Japan. They have shown their great performances responding to the big demand from their eager fans.
Well then, how about our beloved TP&HB?
The band has done their Japan tour only twice until now. First time was in 1980 right after their release of “Damn the Torpedoes” album, and the second time was in 1986 when they came with Bob Dylan for their joint concert “True Confessions Tour.” That is all and they have not been here for more than 13 years now.
Since their record debut in 1976, those fans who love real rock’n roll music have shown strong supports to the band. When TP&HB first visited Japan in April of 1980, they were rather unknown and their purpose of visit was for publicity. But their second visit in 1986 was really a long-awaited one. Their performance with Bob Dylan was truly impressive and full of excitement. However one regrettable thing was that TP&HB played only four songs by themselves, which left us far from being satisfied. We wished to hear much more. But at that time we all thought that they’d be visiting us again in near future. However, our hope had never come true since then, for more than 13 years now.
During the years, as the band continues their awesome production of great music, here in Japan the number of fans are increasing as well. Among the fans there are those who have been listening from the beginning of their career as well as those young fans still in their teenage years and become to know the great music by Tom and the band. Also there are many other people who maybe unfamiliar with TP&HB at the moment but love real rock’n roll music and truly wishing to hear such music. And yet it is our regret that most of these people have not yet had a chance to experience the live performance by the greatest band, TP&HB.
2. TP&HB Japan Tour Realizing Campaign
Having said about the circumstances in Japan, we become to face the question “Do we have to give up our hope to see their Japan tour forever?” No, we can hardly accept such thing. At least, not without even trying anything at all. After all wasn’t it Tom Petty himself who taught us not to back down so easily from anything?
Therefore TP&HB fans in Japan began to express their wish to have their Japan tour. Fans became to know each other through internet and began to work together. We wished to change the present situation. We’ve got to see TP&HB in live! They must come and play for us! Let us experience their wonderful world of rock’n roll! Our desire grew to its maximum and we decided to start this campaign to realize TP&HB Japan tour.
It is really a huge dream and we know it will not be easy to make it happen. But we cannot sit still and just wait. We’ve got to start out and do something or it will never happen. Luckily we have this new tool, internet which offers us a great deal of new means. By using this tool we are able to gather the voices of fans all over in Japan who we don’t know in faces yet. And then we can deliver the message directly to TP&HB themselves as well as to the whole world.
In order to take this into an action, we formed a group called *”Heartbreaker’s Japan Party” as the driving force. Our main activity is the website “The Waiting is the hardest part…” opened on Jan. 11th, 1999. Among the several contents the main part is the **”Signature Book” section. We are gathering there the signatures and messages of the fans who sympathize with us about TP&HB and our campaign. The number of signatures is 180 as of July 21st, 1999. Of course we also accept signatures by mails as well. We are increasing the contents and the site has become an active place of interaction by the fans. Other than that we produced and sent out press release about the campaign to several places those it may concern. We are working on publicity matters in order to proceed with our campaign.
As we all know, TP&HB are currently on the road, in the middle of US tour. We have been hearing great reviews of the shows. We can feel the excitement and the joy of the fans that were able to experience the wonderful show. And yet at the same time our desire to see their concert here in Japan is growing stronger and stronger as well.
We wish to ask for your warm support in order to realize our earnest dream.
*＜What is Heartbreaker’s Japan Party?＞
It is a nonprofit organization by the voluntary people who wish to see TP&HB concert in Japan. The name comes from their song “Heartbreakers Beach Party,” and we also meant by the word ‘party’ about us, the group of Japanese fans.
** In order to make notice our activity to the world outside of Japan, and to TP&HB themselves, we have opened an English website on May 1999. We’d be grateful if you could go and see the sincere and ardent messages sent from the Japanese fans.
