JB Lacroix/WireImageThe 29th annual Pollstar Awards, honoring excellence in the concert industry, was held Thursday at the Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers were one of the event’s big winners.
The band’s 40th anniversary tour, which wrapped up just a week before frontman Tom Petty‘s unexpected death this past fall, received the Major Tour of the Year and Rock Tour of the Year Awards. The trek grossed $64.7 million globally in 2017, according to Pollstar’s year-end chart.
In addition, the group’s longtime manager, Tony Dimitriades, took home the Personal Manager of the Year prize.
During the ceremony, Dimitriades said that working with Petty was a matter of being in the “right place, [at the] right time,” adding, “who would have thought that 40 years later, he’d have the most successful tour and the best-reviewed tour they had.”
Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone and keyboardist Benmont Tench also took to the podium with Dimitriades. Ferrone said, “We all miss Tom. He was a great leader and a great friend. And boy could he rock, what a great rock ‘n’ roll band.” Tench, meanwhile, thanked many of the people who worked with the group, in its crew and its tour manager Richard Ferndandez.
The Pollstar Awards is held in conjunction with the annual Pollstar Live! conference, which this year took place in downtown L.A. from February 6 to 8. Among the artists and music industry figures who took part in various panels and events were Jon Bon Jovi, Lita Ford and Sharon Osbourne.
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